Retrieval Saga: Crossing the Rubicon
by Cydra
Summary: The crew are about to hurled head-long into an expedition they never would have anticipated: a search for the Hamsterviel Empire's homeworld. Many answers will be revealed, including the purpose of NegaMorph and the Viral Clones. Last story of Arc 2.
1. The Garden of Eden

**Retrieval Saga**

**Crossing the Rubicon**

**Chapter 1: The Garden of Eden**

The Bladestorm was metaphorically rudderless. Not because it had been damaged and unable to move, but because the captain had a genetic and mental breakdown. In fact, the Bladestorm's crew was currently waiting for the arrival of a certain ship where they'll be able to treat their stricken captain.

The radar tech looked over at Chris, who was sat in the bridge's captain chair. "Still nothing. Cole's pulling our chains," he said. Mark just said, "It'll be here." "I'm pretty sure it won't be that hard to find," said Techo, "I mean, a planet cracker's kinda hard to miss, isn't it?" One of the techies nodded. "Weren't they used in that war in Dimension V-41?" he said.

Suddenly the radar readout beeped. "Hold it, got a HUGE contact warping in off the port bow...holy smeg..." he said slowly as the stars in the viewport literally vanished behind a wall of metal. Suddenly they heard a woman's voice speak over the communicator, "Greetings, is this the NSS Bladestorm?" Chris nodded, "Yeah, this is Chris Anderson..." The woman interrupted. "Where is Captain Lynch? I was told to expect him," she said. "He's, uh, indisposed," said Chris. The woman sighed. "I see...I'll have a security team ready at shuttle dock 4. We don't have the facilities at our ship-to-ship airlocks. This is Eden...out," she said, terminating the link.

The crew transferred Matt over to the BiNebular and started the cross over to the Eden. Chris assembled the experiments before him. "Now guys," he said, "I think it's important that no one over there learns what you are. I doubt they'll be able to restrain their scientific curiosity enough to keep from genetically dissecting you. So if anyone asks, you're from an odd planet that has weird environmental conditions that resulted in your peculiar evolution." "A bunch of Darwin's wild cards," said Draco, "Got it."

Techo said, "What about Nocturnus-11? Now that's one screwed up planet, specially those talking plant things." "Good idea," said Chris, "No one goes into the Nocturnus system. No one who wants to come back in the same condition they came, anyways." Stitch nodded, "Ok, but what talking plant things?" The mercs all shuddered as if remembering something creepy. "Don't ask," said Chris.

There was a clunk as the Eden's magnetic beams slowly pulled the BiNebular into the shuttle bay, next to a walkway that split the bay in two. At least 3 dozen men in full combat power armor, old civilian models, and holding some extremely lethal looking guns were lining the bay. Two figures stood at the front of the group, waiting. They were both looked Japanese and either in their late 20's or early 30's. The woman had black hair kept up in a bun and amber eyes behind glasses. She wore a lab coat and a short green dress underneath. The man had yellowish eyes and noticeably long sideburns. He was wearing a uniform that signified being the chief of security.

The crew were naturally cautious. Not even Silvia had ever pointed so much firepower in their direction. "You must be Mr Anderson," said the woman, bowing respectfully, "I am Dr Yin Circe, owner of the NSS Eden. This is my chief of Security. He simply prefers the name, Lupo." "Dr. Circe," said Chris, trying to keep his voice diplomatically neutral, "I hear you're the best in genetic cosmetics. Somewhat like your namesake." "Oh, I am. Your captain will be in the best hands imaginable. We do research in many different mutagens, physical and magical., said Dr Circe. Lupo said in a gruff voice, "And where IS the captain?"

At that there was a cry and one of the Bladestorm crew came flying out, literally. Three others came out, holding a struggling, muzzled and still extremely feral Matt between them. "As you can see, he's had another relapse," said Chris. "The only way we could bring him was to induce his winter hibernation instinct," said Techo. Matt finally snapped his hand restraints and banged his handlers' heads together with an auditable clunk, knocking them out stone cold. Dr Circe, Lupo and his men didn't seem worried like everyone else and the security chief simply made a hand gesture, a simple wave and his men took practised aim and 6 beams of energy hit Matt in the chest, causing him to fall down. "Frost guns, our own design, a custom stunner for infected," said Dr. Circe, smoothly as some of Lupo's men picked Matt up and put new restraints on him while others checked the incapacitated mercs for scratches.

"Nice," said Chris, "Is that affective against all cold-blooded species?" Circe nodded, "Indeed but the temperature should be fine tuned for best effect." She seemed thoughtful for a second then said. "So...he has Sy-Yong Syndrome. I thought DARKRIFT eradicated that with the Sy-Yong colony." "We found a sealed-off location where some experiments of that project were contained," said Mark, "It's a long story." "Indeed, you do realise that the genetic therapy will be quite expensive, easily beyond the 50,000 Nullspace credit margin," said Circe. "Ok, I think we can provide the currency needed," said Chris. "However," said Circe, "if you'll allow to study this infection, we'll consider it a donation for scientific research with no charge." Chris looked over at her. Circe added, "We do have the facilities to store the DNA safely. We've never had an accident here and as you can see. We're equipped if there ever is one." Chris looked grim. "I'll have to talk it over with the rest of the crew," he said. Circe petted him on the shoulder. "That seems fair enough," she said and watched as Chris walked off, the nano-bug she'd placed transmitting.

Chris returned to talk to the experiments about this. "I'm all for scientific research," said Chip, "but it sounds to me that it would keep Matt in infected form far longer than we want." Chris said. "She said she just wants DNA samples..." he began and was shouted down by Techo. "Are you off your nut? That stuff's lethal! You forgot what nearly happened in New York?"

"There have been certain cases when a virus is eradicated for the sake of civilization," said Contrinus, "I think there was one called the Blue Shadow plague or something?" "Yup, it took out six planets and it could live in post-nuke blast temperatures. I heard that planets' still off limits. It didn't take out a colony in a week though," said Techo before sighing. "Look, we were at Sy-Yong and New York could easily have been that. I vote we just pay her, least she doesn't want experiment blood," he said

Meanwhile,

Dr. Circe and Lupo had been listening through the bug they had planted. "Pity," said Lupo, "It looks like we won't get to study the Sy-Yong infection after all." "But this could be more interesting," said Dr. Circe, "I wonder what he meant by 'experiment blood'?" Lupo said, "Some rumor to do with that bio-weapon that the Empire has been using." Dr Circe looked thoughtful. "Hmm...a chance to have a sample of the EXP virus...tempting..." she said and the two were interrupted as a technician came in, "Captain Lynch is ready in room 3, ma'am." "Very well," said Dr. Circe, "We might as well get started on him."

--

Matt opened his eyes weakly. The last thing he could clearly remember was attempting to press Romanov's head through the tarmac of the New York storage park where they'd fought. He suddenly remembered a little more and shot upright, looking at his hands. "Oh, thank god," he muttered when he saw they were not claw tipped or covered in scales.

"Relax, Captain Lynch," said a female doctor who was in the room, "You're in safe hands." Matt looked suspiciously at the doctor. "And you are?" "Dr Yin Circe. Your crew brought you here for Genetic therapy. I'm happy to say it was successful," she said. "Well, that's a relief," said Matt, "Least I don't have the urge to sun myself anymore." Circe added, "But as your doctor, I recommend you remain here. You were supposed to have been cured last time too." Matt rolled his eyes. "There's always a 'but'."

"Relax, there's nothing to fret about. You might think of this ship as a sort of health spa." Matt looked up at a security camera/defence turret combo aiming at him. "Yes...a health spa..." he said unconvinced. Dr. Circe followed his eyes. "Oh, that's just a necessary precaution in case you went feral again. We wouldn't want that to happen, would we?" "I suppose," said Matt and got up, heading for the exit. He opened the door and one of the power armoured troopers from earlier aimed a gun with a muzzle hole big enough to fit his hand in. "Ooook...mandatory bed rest?" he said.

"I'm afraid so," said Dr. Circe, "We're not certain if your recovery is 100% complete. There's a chance that some of the infection is still lingering." Matt wasn't convinced. "Pull the other one," he said and in a smooth movement uncoupled the guard's gun's power pack and strolled by. "Oh, and get better flash training," he said, walking off to come face to face with a wolf anthro in a security uniform that proclaimed him the security chief. "Someone's been at a dog biscuits," said Matt. "Ah, Lupo, good for you to come," said Dr. Circe, "Our patient needs convincing he needs bed rest." Without a word, Lupo brought his fist down on Matt's head. "Ooooh....look at all da pretty birdies," mumbled Matt before crumpling.

"His crewmates may become suspicious," said Lupo. "Doctor's orders," said Dr. Circe. As if on cue, the intercom beeped. "Doctor? We have a situation. Some of the captain's crew are demanding to see him." "Tell them he's resting right now and should not be disturbed," replied Dr. Circe. "I, erm, tried that. I also tried shutting the door on them, didn't work." Lupo looked around at that, "The bulkhead didn't work?"

"Well, some of his crew are really unusual. Really, really unusual," said the reply. "Define 'unusual'." said Lupo and jumped as the door was peeled aside by Hyena and Stitch who walked in, followed by Lilo and the rest of the crew. "I believe we have the rights to see our captain," said Lilo. By herself, she didn't seem very threatening. But the various strange creatures backing her made the demand more threatening. The guard clicked his gun's power cell back in and aimed, his voice sounding almost robotic through his helmet's filter. "Step away," he said. Lupo looked at Dr Circe who sighed, "Fine, he's in there but he isn't awake. Your friends are strange creatures. What planet are they from?"

"Er, Nocturnus-11," said Draco, "Lots of weird beings there. And talking plants." Dr Circe smiled but it seemed to Chris and Techo at least that it was a 'aha' type of smile, not a happy one. "Of course, I've heard about that world," she said. Lupo made a hand gesture at the guard who stepped aside smartly.

"By the way, what type of creature is that?" she asked, pointing at Chip, "I highly doubt cyborgs pop up naturally." Chris stepped in. "Accident a few months ago. Empire anti-matter torpedo. We were lucky that a medical ship was nearby," he said and made a 'play along' sign to Chip. "Right, had to preserve my vital organs in this body," said Chip, "Of course, this wasn't really what I looked like before."

"Of course." said Dr Circe before walking off. As they rounded the corners, she said to Lupo, "They must think I'm an idiot, don't they watch the news? Arrange for a couple of them to come down to the labs." Lupo nodded and said, "Let's find out what they're really made of."

* * *

There's the first chapter of the last story of this arc. Frankly, I thought there were going to be two more stories to this arc, but me and largefish8 found a way to squeeze them together. I'm going for a legendary motif with the chapter titles for dramatic reasons. The gang is about to get way over their heads in the next chapter so stick around for it. Please review.

Also, I'm working on another story in the Digimon category. It involves BlackWarGreymon, so check it out if you can spare the time.


	2. The Mother of Demons

**Retrieval Saga**

**Crossing the Rubicon**

**Chapter 2: The Mother of Demons**

The gang was not convinced that Matt was really resting for 'his own good'. "There's something weird about this so-called 'hospital'," said Chip. "Who's calling this a hospital?" said Draco. Chris nodded. "Chip, there was a sign in the cargo bay that said 'this is not a hospital'. Didn't you see it?" Techo said, "What sign?" "That sign," said Stitch. The others looked to see a large sign that said, "THIS IS NOT A HOSPITAL". "Huh, how'd I miss that?" said Chip. Chris shrugged.

The group stopped at an inter-section lift. "Go get Matt a sandwich?" said Techo. They all thought back to when they'd last seen Matt:

_He'd taken one look at the meal he'd been given by the orderly and had started trying to eat the fork. Even Hyena had sniffed the meal and turned a funny colour. Morph poked what was supposed to be a casserole with a fork. Suddenly an arm formed from the 'casserole' and grabbed the fork. Morph quickly grabbed a knife and said "En garde!" Then he and the 'casserole' got into a surprisingly fierce sword fight._

Chris shuddered as the memory ended. "Rule one: Never eat food that fights back," he said as the lift arrived. "Well, I've lost my appetite," said Mark, "Where's the lounge level?" He pressed the button marked '1'. There was a beep and the door shut. A few minutes later and the door opened to reveal a second door that looked heavy duty. "Maybe the sandwiches are worse?" said Techo, trying the door. It hissed open to reveal a surgical white corridor with dozens of pressure doors lining it on either side.

"This feels like something out of a sci-fi movie," said Chris. "Yeah, the kind with the creepy psychos," said Chip. "I don't know, if you ask me, this has more a 'mad scientist' vibe," said Kala. A floating disc with two laser cannons on arms floated round the corner. The symbols on it confirmed that it was cleared for extremely lethal force. "Identify," it toned, aiming at them. "Um, isn't this visitor's hours?" asked Chip. "Identify," the bot toned again, this time with more force behind its request. The guns glowed as it poured energy into them. "Um, aren't you supposed to be the super-hacker?" said Techo. "Oh, right," said Chip and he flipped open the droid's input panel and stuck his hand in there. The droid's eye flickered and it chimed. "Dr Yin Circe...recognized..." it said before floating off. Chris whistled "Very nice," he said before walking off to wipe some mist off a doors viewhole.

"Guys, you're not gonna believe this," said Chris. "Yeah, it's like a zoo," said Morph. Chris looked back to see Morph several feet off the ground and looking through another door's viewhole. "How did you...never mind...take a look," said Chris. The groups peered in through a few doors. Some were what looked like simple storage rooms, containing rows of vials. A few however had things in them. There was a mix, quite a few being were-creatures which wasn't surprising. The sheer number of thropy viruses in Nullspace made it a cutting edge research, cure research being top of the list.

One door was open as a cargo droid, escorted by vacuum modifications of the security droid from earlier, slowly put a pile of data disks and a single vial into an empty store room. Chip picked up one of the disks and said, "Interesting, give me a minute to look through this." The two security droids tensed up as Chip took a handful of disks off the pile. When he walked off without touching the vial however, they calmed down again.

Meanwhile,

Kala and Hyena decided to see if they could see Matt. Surprisingly, they found his door unguarded. Matt wasn't in there but Dr Circe was. "Oh, are you looking for the captain?" she said kindly. "Er, yes," said Kala, "We're just worried about him." "Oh, he's probably somewhere on C deck again. He keeps trying to escape," said Dr Circe. "I did want to meet you however. I did some research on your homeworld. Did you know that a week before your records say you all joined, Nocturnus-11 was destroyed by the Empire?" she said sweetly, noticing Kala's horrified face. "Then I did some more research, so you are 627." she said looking at Hyena.

There was a hiss as the door behind them opened and four I-Cor droids, identical to the one that had waylaid the rest of the crew down on containment hovered inside. "Well, you have to understand that there's a reason we were less than open before," said Kala nervously. Hyena was less diplomatic. "You ain't putting me on a lab table!" he yelled and threw a plasma ball at one of the droids. The plasma orb splashed harmlessly off the droid's chassis. Its response was more to the point. Two beams of pure black energy knocked Hyena into the wall next to Dr Circe. "Do you like them? I design them myself. Now then, are we going to come quietly or do I have to authorize lethal force and remove a limb?"

"I'm pretty sure this violates some civil rights law," said Kala as she raised her arms up in surrender. "We're in the badlands. All the usual security fleets are fighting the empire and your friends are about...to be busy," said Dr Circe before tapping in a code on her wrist-comp. "You know, Commander Cole will not be happy that you impersonated his friends, ah well. The I-Cor designs need a test run anyway."

Back in Containment,

The group turned as the droids suddenly rounded on them. "Friend/Foe data deleted...Lethal force authorized," toned one and started firing. A stray beam hit one of the door controls and an alarm began to ring. "Uh, what's going on here?" asked Mark. "My guess, visiting hours are over," said Chris. The group ran into the open door to find it flooded with more mist. A dozen human silhouettes could be seen standing in the mist. One of them moaned and started staggering towards the group. One of the droids hovered in the doorway, "Alert...containment breach of Virus: T variant 71a."

The gang looked to see what looked like zombies coming towards them, and not at the iconic stumbling speed. "Ah great," said Draco sarcastically, "As if real zombies weren't bad enough, now we have to fight their sci-fi counterpart." The droids fired, but not at the crew. The first beam hit a zombie which vanished with a corrosive hiss. "Let's get outta here while these guys sort their differences out," yelled Chris, firing his blaster at a zombie who shrugged off all the shots.

Morph tried to get away, but he got cornered by a group of zombies. The first zombie poked Morph on the head and shrugged. They looked at each other, shrugged and then headed for the others, crying, "Brains! Brains!" Morph looked rather insulted, "Well, I never!" he said.

The group ran down the corridor. "Call the lift, call the smegging lift," wailed Techo desperately as a smashed I-Cor bot flew out the room and stuck in the wall like a morning star before exploding. The blast must have shorted something as EVERY cell then opened. "Alert...Containment failure," said a voice. "Great, this'll be like when Bedlam broke loose," said Chip. "One big difference," said Contrinus, "The people in Bedlam were human." Several creatures came pouring out of the cells. Some could only be barely recognized as once human. The cacophony produced was horrendous. "I say we find another way out before we get torn apart," said Draco. "I second that notion," said Chip.

The droids attempted to keep what order they could but numbers could overwhelm anything and after a minute they vanished under the sheer numbers. Luckily for the crew, it seemed that the creatures were just as intent on killing each other as they were the crew. "OPEN!" screamed Techo and the door dinged to reveal Matt. "Dammit. This isn't the shuttlebay," said Matt, not noticing them at first. "Hey, what're you guys doing..." he began and was ran over as the crew piled into the lift. "TALK LATER!" yelled Chris, pressing the 'door close' button as several avian creatures started looking at them in a hungry way.

"So, where have you been?" asked Mark. "Trying to get out of the ward level. They keep coming up with stupid reasons for bed rest, in-growing nosehairs was a good one though," said Matt before realizing what he'd seen. "You broke the Containment level?" he said accusingly. "We were trying to find the lounge," said Chip, "But we've found something even more interesting." "Containment? I knew it was around. She'd have to have something to test cures out on," said Matt, "And now you've let all the live subjects loose. We get back to BladeStorm and come back with fireteams to help clean this up. And ALL of you will help clean this up, get me?" "Sheesh, it was just an accident," said Draco, "By the way, have you seen Kala and Hyena?" "No, they're probably at the shuttlebay." said Matt.

--

The two experiments were not there however. Two of Lupo's men were there though. "Told you he'd make it this time…hey, his crew helped him, that's cheating," said One of them. "Er, sorry, we left a bit of a mess back there, but we're going to clean it up," said Matt, making a mental note of what the guards just said. "What mess?" said the other guard. At that the P.A sounded. "All teams to levels bordering Containment. Protocol has been breached. Proceed to your designated Redline zones." The two guards looked at Matt and glared, "We'll be back, you don't go anywhere," said the guard. The two of them quickly left in the direction the crew came.

"This place is starting to give the creeps," said Contrinus. "Yeah," said Draco, "seems like they're more interested in studying genetic illnesses than curing them." Chris and Techo looked at Contrinus. "You're telling me that a medical research ship like the Honolulu didn't have a few samples of what you were trying to cure?" said Techo. Matt said, "Not even the Blackstar station had this much samples though. I don't like this," before going into the BiNebular and grabbing a spare wrist-comp. "Kala? Hyena? Get back here." he said. Matt got nothing but static. "Kala, Hyena, come in!" he shouted. "Wasn't the Honolulu being used to breed biological weapons?" said Chip.

Matt tried to power up the BiNebular's computers, forgetting Chip had made them so only he could do the log on program. "Chip? Little help please," he said after the 5th access denied. "Sure thing," said Chip, "I want to study what was on those discs a little more." The computer finally beeped and showed the locations. "Hey, that's not right," he said, looking at the readout with Chip. The readout happily showed that the two missing experiments were down in one of the laboratory levels. "What could they be doing down there?" asked Chip. "I don't know," said Matt, "and I hope for their sake, the 'good doctor' doesn't know either." Matt looked at Chip. "Could you see what goes on there? Bet you could make the Eden mainframe talk." he said. "Ok, might take a bit of a while," said Chip, "I'll need to find a terminal to access it through."

Suddenly the proximity alarm sounded. Chris went to a porthole and gulped, Erm...guys?" Stitch took a look as well. Lupo was storming down the hallway with several of his men. "Not good," said Stitch. "I think we should barricade bar the door this time," said Draco. The first few raised their oversized rifles and opened fire just as the door slid shut. The rounds went clean through and caused damage to the BiNebular's hull, blowing basketball-sized holes in the armor. Reuben looked from the wrecked security doors to Stitch. "Block em with what, cuz?" he said sarcastically.

"Hey! You have any idea how long it took us to build this thing!" yelled Chip. He ducked as several blasts nearly hit him. One of them hit Morph who proclaimed, "Look at me, I'm a donut!" Another shot hit the wall and exploded. The troopers seemed intent on killing them. Lupo just grinned. "We'll show you what happens to people who impersonate Darkrift allies," he said. "Wait a minute!" yelled Chip over the gunfire, "Can't we at least discuss what this is about?" A shot went through the shoulder joint and his arm fell off. "Ok...maybe not," Chip said before Matt pulled him out of sight again. "This is nuts!" he yelled, pulling Chip's arm into cover as well and passing it to him.

The P.A sounded again. "Alert...malfunction is Thropy storage pod 5...ejection system enabled." "Wait, what?" said Morph as a torpedo-like container was ejected out of the Eden. "Uh, that wasn't my fault," said Matt quickly. Lupo's men kept firing madly. Matt, Chris and Techo returned fire only for the blasts to ricochet off. "Bloody Military tech!" yelled Matt, lobbing a plasma ball at a guard who was trying to line up a shot on Lilo. "What kind of madhouse is this?!" yelled Draco, "We don't even know why we're being shot at!" Matt fired a pulse into the walkway support next to two of the guards, making the walkway section they were on to capsize, throwing them into the bay. "That got em…oh come on," he said when he saw the troopers get back up, their armor having protected them safely.

Suddenly the P.A. went off again, "Alert, security breach in Residential Level 6!" "Fall back!" called Lupo, "We need to care of this later." He and the other guards quickly left the bay. The group peered out of their various covers as the troopers simply stopped firing and stomped off after Lupo. "Ok...that was anti-climatic," said Matt

Then Dr. Circe's voice came over the P.A. "Attention crew of the BiNebular, or should I say, Empire saboteurs, you are to remain where you while we deal with the dilemma you have caused. You will then be properly arrested by NSC forces." "Oh for heavens sake..." said Matt and stopped as she continued. "I guess the rumors were right, there's no doing business with you people." Matt stopped at this. "Business?" he said. "I was hoping I could make a bargain with you people so I may examine the EXP Virus more, but you just had to be difficult. Consider that you brought this on yourselves." Then Dr. Circe ended the transmission.

Matt looked at the others. "Well, that'll explain how Hamsterjerk got all those virus bombs at the start of the war," he said. Chris said, "We gotta get Kala and Hyena outta there." "Yeah, as soon as they're free, we're outta here," said Draco, "I've had enough of the house of freaks." "No, if Dr Circe's done business with the Empire, maybe she has a way to get Chloe back…and where the Empires Homeworld is," said Matt.

"I'm sorry, I think my audio receptors must be damaged," said Chip, "It sounded like you wanted to stay in this ship of horrors to do some snooping regarding a mad scientist who has many guards with deadly firearms." "What? You're combat series experiments. You can't handle a few canned morons?" said Matt, cockily. "It's not just the guards," said Reuben, "Who knows what kind of monsters she has in those holding areas? I don't wanna know. You probably don't wanna know. I know Morph doesn't want to know." Matt took a second to look at Morph, who had handcuffed himself to the door. "Ok...and what if Circe decides she want to sell a few of these wonderful viruses to the empire?" said Matt. "Good point," said Draco, "But what if she turns these viruses on us? I'm not trying to be a coward, but I have no idea whether it'd kill me or not." "We have to." said Matt.

--

The crew walked through the corridors of the ship. Most of the crew were not around, which worried Matt. "I don't like this," said Chris. They'd already seen what had seemed like Sy-Yong infected but had been alot more docile, fleeing when they'd seen the crew. "Just how many of these people have been infected by accident?" asked Mark. They walked round the corner to see the corridor filled with what seemed like test creatures that had tried their luck with security and lost...extremely badly.

"Next sector," said Matt, looking at his wrist-comp before seeing a security armory ahead. "Let's see how they like their own gear," said Matt, melting the door lock. Chris glanced through the weapons. "Pretty high tech for a research facility," he said. "Some of this is Combine tech...and that's the laser rifles Hamsterviel's battle droids use," said Matt, picking a dark energy rifle off a rack. "I thought people came here to get genetic therapy, not get killed," said Draco as he picked up a rather tiny-looking gun. "That's exactly what I'm wonder- WHOA! Careful with that!" Draco had the gun pointed in Matt's direction until Matt moved it away. Matt carefully took it off Draco and put it back. "Noisy Cricket blasters pack a punch...be careful," said Matt before looking around shiftily and pocketing it.

The gang, kitted out a bit better sneaked round the corner...and saw Lupo and 40 of his men standing waiting. "Captain? I'm afraid the Doctor is not to be disturbed. Let's bring this to an end quietly," said Lupo, his face shifting strangely. The group watched as his hair suddenly gotten longer. Then they realized it wasn't getting longer, it was spreading. His legs shifted from a platigrade, or flat-footed, position to a digitigrade position. "Get them," snarled the now-werewolf Lupo and the guards started firing at the group.

"The chief of security is a werewolf," said Chip, "Why am I not surprised?" "With a name like Lupo?" said Matt before firing a rifle at one of the guards. "We have had a large variety of enemies," said Draco as he counted off on his fingers; "We've fought a descendant of an old enemy, the female duplicate of a newer enemy, the evil doppelganger of a friend, and an amalgamation of EXP AI's come to life. Even that makes my head spins."

The guy's skeleton was outlined as the beam hit and he crumpled, unconscious. "Neutron rifle, illegal, but useful at the moment," said Matt, before stunning another one. Another guard raised a rifle with a glowing barrel and a huge ball of flaming plasma shot out, knocking Matt down the corridor.

Lupo however had his eyes set on Chris, even knocking his own men aside. "Uh, guys," said Draco, "Something tells me he isn't interested in fighting like a man anymore and he's looking really hungry." One guard tried to stamp on Stitch and got thrown into his friends as a penalty. The armor may have been good but at close range with a 600 series experiment it just meant they were good clubs. Lupo however was definitely not fighting like a human anymore, using his claws to try and tear Chris to shreds. "Ok, someone needs to help me before this gets too messy," said Chris, not wanting to think of what would happen if Lupo managed to infect him. Matt came up behind the werewolf and took a swipe at him, only succeeding in earning Lupo's brief attention, at least long enough for the angry lycan to backhand him back the way he'd come. Lupo finally landed a lucky slash to Chris's arm.

"Ok, that dog needs to be put down," said Chip as he reached inside his chest compartment. He pulled out a dog whistle and handed it to Morph. "I hate to it" said Chip, "but this is an emergency." Matt looked confused. "You think that'll work?" he said. "Oh, it will work," said Chip as he shut off his audio receptors. Morph blew hard into the whistle. At first Matt thought nothing had happened...and then his head felt like someone had just set off a demolition charge in each earhole. That was nothing compared to poor Lupo, cursed as he was with canine hearing at that moment. He went rigid and fell on his side, howling. Matt yelled at Morph, "CUT IT OUT!" Morph continued to blow for a couple more seconds. Unfortunately, Reuben, Stitch, and Draco's enhanced hearing made them rather susceptible to Morph's high-pitched sound.

Matt finally managed to snatch it off Morph. "When I yell 'stop' I mean stop," said Matt, not noticing Lupo getting up behind him. He heard a snarl and heard a pulse blast. Lupo looked round to see Chris, holding his scratched side and also holding a pulse laser. Lupo was on the ground, a large hole burned through his side. "You feeling okay?" asked Chip as soon as he turned his hearing back on. "I was nearly mauled by a nutcase in a fur coat, how do you think I feel?" snapped Chris. Matt was burning the lock off the door. "Cool it, Chris. Ah, there we go," he said as the door clicked open.

The door opened to reveal a large lab. There were several specimen samples in glass vials on shelves along the wall. Dr. Circe was in there, as well as Kala and Hyena. The last two were strapped to separate lab tables. Matt readied a plasma orb. "Hi, Doc. Step away from the illegal genetic experiments," he said happily, putting a blast into the floor in front of her to put the message across. Chip followed behind him and said, "Ok, Nurse Ratched, we're gonna tell the authorities about this twisted operation you're running. But before we do, I want to know why. Even scientific curiosity can't drive you this much. You must have some ulterior motivation." "Money. You think Cole pays me anything?" she said, adding, "Though I have to admit, it was mostly for knowledge. Where is Lupo, may I ask?" she said and smiled when she spotted Chris's wound.

"Probably still twitching on the floor," said Matt, "I'm surprised you didn't hear that whistle in here." "It's a soundproof room," said Circe. "So you killed him? I'm guessing you aren't from the emperor after all. You're able to hold yourselves in battle, unlike the clowns he hires." "Um, thanks?" said Matt.

"And now you expect me to surrender?" said Dr. Circe. "Pretty much," said Chip, "You don't have anything left to fight with." Circe pressed a button on her wrist-comp and a klaxon activated. "Warning. Storage pods primed for ejection." "What'll it be? Chase me or stop a multiversal pandemic?" she said.

Matt growled and said, "Fine, but you'll regret it if we ever meet again." Morph had come in at that point. His hearing was a little addled by that blast he blew so he heard Matt's statement wrong. "Blow that little whistle again? Okay!" said Morph. Matt turned as Morph readied the whistle, managing to say "No...wait a..." before the world span. Circe screamed in anguish as the various specimen samples in the lab began to crash and literally explode like frag grenades. Matt dived behind a table, just as several dozen glass shards turned the wall into a dartboard.

By incredible luck, the shards didn't hit Kala and Hyena, just their tethers. "Whoa, I can't we weren't even scratched by those things," said Kala. "Tell that to Morph," said Hyena. Fortunately, Morph was immune to most mutations, but that didn't stop him from looking peculiar. "Look at me, I'm a sea urchin!" he said.

Matt and the gang followed the shards to a small smear of red on the wall. Circe was hiding behind the cover there, pulling a piece of glass out her shoulder. "You...you Neanderthals!" she yelled, pushing Matt aside and running out.

"Well, Morph, you just stopped a crazy scientist and ruined her collection of mutating viruses, nice work," said Matt. "Sure, I'd like an icy twist of melon juice and selection of blueberry pie," said Morph, "but why'd you call me a jerk?" "I think you've gone deaf," said Matt before looking out the window to see a cloud of pods launching from where the containment level was. "Talking of mutagenetic viruses..." he said worriedly.

* * *

There's another chapter. This was a pretty crazy one. I liked the part with Morph and the zombies, sorta like that one Simpsons episode with Homer in the same position and getting the same treatment. And there's gonna be a couple of things in this chapter that are gonna come back to haunt the gang, some more than others. But first, they have to deal with all those pods. Stay tuned for the next chapter to see what happens. Please review.


	3. The Clashing Rocks

****

Retrieval Saga

**Crossing the Rubicon**

**Chapter 3: The Clashing Rocks**

When something threatens to spread a plague of some kind across the galaxy, you certainly expect something to take action. So imagine what happens when several mutative plagues are threatening to spread across the galaxy. Now multiply the reaction by a thousand and you get the reaction of the NSC, now that every mutagenic virus known was threatening to spread across the entire multiverse. Hundreds of ships, from small corvette classes right up to three of the NSC's Planet Cracker class ships were all over the inner sectors, scouring and blowing away the pods that had ejected from the Eden a week ago. Only a few were left but all the focus was on one.

Captain Adorn of the Planet Cracker 'FireWind' watched as his fleet floated around him, focusing on a single spot in Nullspace. He was confused as to why the entire 4th fleet was on escort for a single aging Phoenix Class. He wasn't surprised however; the Phoenix class was one of the few ship types with the needed capture gear.

--

Matt sat at the controls. "So, what's in this pod then?" he asked, rubbing his head. He had gotten no sleep for the past 2 days. "I think this one's another werewolf," said Chris, "How many has that been so far?" "557 types so far," said Matt. "It's apparently very common, this type apparently had the aggression hormones filtered out by Dr Circe." Chris added, "In other words, the perfect genetic upgrade for troops."

"Huh, you know, this looks kinda familiar," said Draco, "If I didn't know better, I'd say it was..." Chip quickly caught him before he said anymore and quickly whispered the Turonian version of, "Ix-nay on the ids-kay ack-bay at adic-kay."

Matt turned, smirking. He'd never let on that he'd programmed Turonian into his wristcomps translators. He'd have to ask later. "Pod warping in sir, looks like it rip engines charging already," said the rader tech as a flash in the space ahead changed to show a small dot barely the size of a closet headed straight for them. "..hold it...what the hell's that?" he added as about 300 more, larger flashes appeared, followed by the rapidly enlargening vision of a fleet...an empire fleet. "Oh, you have got to be pulling my leg," said Matt, "I am so not in the mood for this." "When is he ever in the mood for this?" asked Draco. "If he ever is, I think we should be a comfortable distance away from him," said Chip.

---

On the lead empire ship, Silvia was just as stunned. "Isn't that overkill?" she said in a small voice as the NSC fleet began to get into combat formation. "Considering what was on the Eden, I'd probably send that many ships too," said NegaMorph. The biggest ship was aiming at the only other super-Dreadnought in her fleet. The glow on its main port looked like a normal laser. "Must be a new comman..." began NegaMorph and stopped as a thin beam cut the ship in half...and the three ships behind it too. "...oookay...never mind," he said. "Maybe this was a bad idea," said Silvia. "What, you're not chickening out now, are you?" teased NegaMorph.

The other ships began to open fire, on both sides, blaster round tearing each other apart and NSC Starviper fighters exchanging fire with droid fighters. Silvia however, saw an old ship heading for the pod. She didn't need to see the name, only one person flew a junky Phoenix class. "We need to beat them to that pod," said Silvia, "NegaMorph, you're the lightest, get into an escape pod and head them off." "What me?" said NegaMorph, "Why should I risk my neck?" "Cause I'll be busy crippling their ship so their defense cannons don't smear you across space," she said in a 'matter of fact' voice. NegaMorph glared and headed off, muttering for the nearest escape shuttle.

--

Matt watched as the remaining command ship started heading their way, letting loose a few random blasts even at extreme range and narrowly missing joining its sister ship in two separate sections. "I am so demanding a pay raise for this," grumbled Matt. "Out of curiosity," said Kala, "you think we can get another favor from Cole since his first one didn't turn out to be much of a favor?" "Nah, he'll probably send us a live nuclear weapon or something," said Matt, pulling a rebreather from the locker next to an airlock. Nullspace, unlike normal space did have a atmosphere, but it was a toxic soup of every gas imaginable. "Uh, you sure it's a good idea to go outside with a battle going on like that?" said Draco. "Any other ideas?" said Matt as the airlock began to cycle.

The door hissed open and Matt was happy that his ears were tougher then a normal humans as the sheer noise was deafening. Beams the size of trucks shot from the wall that was the port side of Silvia's command dreadnought. The huge warehouse-sized 500 mm deck cannons were returning fire alongside hails of new Covenant designed plasma torpedoes. In the middle of the mess sat the pod. "Here's a tip," said Chip, "Try to imagine this is like a movie. There's a diamond in the middle of an intense laser grid and you're going to slip through like an eel and steal it." "Yes...and don't think about the small fact that Silvia's probably sent a force of jump droids to make my life hell," said Matt sarcastically before kicking off and floating towards the pod.

He and Kala landed on the side just as an auditable 'splat' was heard on the other side, followed by Tantalog swearing. Matt swore himself and muttered, "Oh great, give me droids every day." NegaMorph came up on the other sides. He took one look at Matt and Kala and said, "Figures. It had to be you two. Kala, did you lose weight, or some extra limbs?" Matt blasted at him, careful to angle it so if he missed the shot would head harmlessly away from the pod. "Get lost. Finders keepers, blob boy," he said, shooting again. "Ah, come on," said NegaMorph, "I don't even want to be out here. I specialize in hunting EXP virus clones, not-" he stopped to glance at the pod's label, "-lycanthropy? Boy, that witch really did have her place stocked." "I'd ask you to bite me but I already have EXP virus," said Matt before noticing something weird with NegaMorph's outline. "Hey, what's up? Ate a clone that disagreed with you?" he said. "I don't do well in zero-gravity, okay?" said NegaMorph, "That's the other reason I don't want to be out here."

On the dreadnought, a gunner took an interest in what looked like an escape pod. He took careful aim and fired a neat shot into the glowing engine. At that moment, a beam shot clean through the pod's engine. "Uh oh," said Matt and NegaMorph as the engine began to flicker and glow red, then orange, then white. "Matt, move!" yelled Kala and kicked him. Because of the lack of gravity, Kala's kick sent Matt a fair distance back. Matt was sent, with rather accurate aim, through the Bladestorm's airlock which began to seal. "KALA, NO!" he yelled, the pod disappearing into a complete whiteout just as the pod sealed.

--

Silvia was thrown from her command chair as the ship was nearly pushed on its side. At the same time, core breach alarms sounded. "MA'AM! THE POD! THE PORTSIDE SECTIONS! THEY'RE, THEY'RE GONE!" screamed a pilot over the noise. Silvia looked out the window and saw another ship that had been hit badly. It looked like an apple that had a bite taken out of it, by a horse. "Wow," she said. "Er, Ma'am? That's a feed from one of our escort ships, it's us," he said, terrified. "Where's NegaMorph?" she asked. "He was in the center of that blast," said the pilot, "I doubt even his regeneration could pull himself together after that." Silvia just stared as distant explosions were heard, at the same time that explosions tore through the rear of the vessel on screen. "Miss Silvia, we have to get to your ship!" the techie yelled, shaking her. "Fine," she said, "But send a probe droid towards that Phoenix class. If they've found anything, I want to know." The bridge staff carried out the order and then scrambled for escape pods while a group of the human military staff escorted Silvia to the launch bay.

--

Matt came too in what he thought was the Bladestorm's med bay. He felt like a truck had run him down. "Ow...anyone get the number of the truck?" he said before seeing he was on the North Star instead. "What happened?" "Something exploded really big," said Stitch, "It was like BOOM! And then everyone started screaming and-" Chip decided to intervene, "Whatever it was, it badly damaged any ship within range. The Bladestorm's in dry dock now. And I should probably mention we asked Cole for another favor." "What?" said Matt and looked around for Kala. "Where is she?" he said when he couldn't see her anywhere. "We were kinda hoping you could tell us," said Draco, "So we don't have to use another of Cole's favors to find her."

"What? You didn't find her?" he said, horrified and pale before his expression became a glare. "Wait...what favor?" "Well, since Cole's sending us to the Eden didn't turn out so well, we thought it might not count as a favor," said Contrinus. "Naturally, we sent Morph as the messenger," said Reuben.

"You sent Morph to someone who has permission to vaporize people who annoy him?" said Matt, even more horrified. There was a knock at the door and a courier came in. "These for a Mr. Chip." said the lion anthro messenger, passing a message CD and a jar of blackened ash which went, "Hi guys, turns out Cole has a nasty temper."

"Oh dear," said Chip. Draco simply fainted away. "Uh, somebody get him some salve," said Contrinus. "How much?" asked Reuben. "Oh, I think a tubful should be a start." Matt couldn't resist the joke, regardless if it was the drugs he had or simple chance for a joke. He said, "Instant experiment, just add water."

--

Kala moaned weakly as the blackness in front of her eyes slowly became the starlit rainbow sky of Nullspace. "Whoa, what a pretty sight," she said. She slowly got up and said saw who was lying a couple feet away. "But that isn't." NegaMorph was lying in a crater, glaring. "Get smegged, 7-7-7," he said in a bubbly voice, not from injury but simply cause he was simply a small gooey pool in a crater. "You look like you've been in a tanning bed for too long," said Kala. NegaMorph glared. "And you look like you've been shot with a flamethrower, soot girl," he said, slowly coming back together. Kala glanced down at herself and noticed she was covered in ashes. She brushed herself off and said, "What happened back there?" "One of the gunners was an idiot, that's what happened. And to top it off, I'm stuck on some moon rock with you," said NegaMorph, gloomily, "Wherever that moon rock is..."

By the time Kala had finished cleaning herself off, NegaMorph had built up into a solid form again. "Give me a hand up, will ya?" he said, holding out one of his left hands out of the crater. Kala hesitated. "We can't, you remember what happened last time?" she said. "Oh yeah," said NegaMorph crawling out of the crater. "Well, I might as well start looking for an Empire outpost, couldn't be that far away from here," said NegaMorph. Kala looked at NegaMorph. "What about me?" she said. "I can't exactly walk into an empire base. Plus, how do you know the empire are here? NSC space isn't purple." she said, pointing up. NegaMorph looked up at the rainbow sky and said, "Perhaps, but it's better than nothing. Worst case scenario, this could be a desolated rock."

There was a humming suddenly in the distance and a small device, more like a floating flashlight flew over the ridge, closely followed by at least 6 more, all heading for them. Kala was about to run when NegaMorph said, "Relax, they don't have any weapons on them." The swarm passed the group. Just when NegaMorph thought they had passed, one stopped and turned, heading back for them. It hovered in front of them, whistling, and the sides shot forward into a metal frill. The rest, seemingly attracted flew back and hovered around them, 'frills' out. Suddenly a camera flash from one went off in NegaMorph's eyes, the others following suite. "Hey! Cut it out!" said NegaMorph, his eyes smarting from the bright flashes. The bots seemed amused at that, whistling in a clearly happy way, taking more of their pictures. Finally NegaMorph snapped and smashed one out the air, sending it into a rock with a robotic squeal. The others stopped at that, dead as it they were on invisible furniture. The eyes all turned red and as one they all flew off in the same direction.

"Now you've done it," snapped Kala, "We could have gotten help from those guys. But you had to be your usual antisocial self. Now they're probably gonna come back with weapons." NegaMorph was looking at the wrecked droid, more precisely at a piece of steel with what looked like a fractured planet on it. "Oh boy, I think they're bringing guns anyway," he said slowly. "Why? They don't like ugly mutants?" said Kala. "Those were Combine federation cam-bot drones. The Combine don't like anyone," said NegaMorph. There was more whistling at that, deeper this time. What looked like small boxes with three legs, bounded over the ridge towards them, making what sounded like robotic barking noises. "That's what they use for weapons?" said Kala, "Those things don't look tough."

The first drones third eye flashed and Kala's shoulder burned. She looked to see an aqua blue dart in her shoulder. A second later the rocks around the two shattered as the drones started firing in full auto, walking slowly forward. "Looks can be deceiving," said NegaMorph as he tried to find cover, "Don't just stand there, don't you have self-preservation in your programming?" Kala dived behind a rock and then had to move as the darts ripped holes in the boulder. "What cover?" she yelled over the noise as the three bots continued to fire ruthlessly. "Just long enough to get a good aim at them," said NegaMorph, firing several nega-blasts at the drones.

The blasts bounced off unseen shields but it seemed to do something. The droids stopped, staring. Finally another, slightly larger, cam-bot flew over them and spoke, "You are trespassing on Combine Confederation property. Surrender at once. Resistance will be met with deadly force."

"Maybe we should do what they say," said Kala, "We don't have that many options." NegaMorph wasn't convinced. "You really don't know what the Combine do to prisoners," he said. "Is it really so bad?" asked Kala. "Let me put it this way, have you ever seen one of the Combine's top men? And I use men as a rather broad term." Kala thought about it. Give that, on a century scale, the combine fought the NSC every week, there were not many, if any troopers who had been combine POW's. "NegaMorph," said Kala, "We're on an asteroid who knows how far away from NSC or Empire territory. Even if we could evade these guys, we'll starve to death out here."

"Your reply is required, your cooperation is not," said the voice. "What exactly does that mean?" asked Kala, not sure that she wanted to know the answer. NegaMorph sighed. "It means they're gonna take us regardless of what we do and probably kill us too." Kala sighed, "Figures."

NegaMorph called out to the drones, "Hey! You got a particular reason why you're after us?" The drone stared at NegaMorph and he knew at that that it was the drone speaking, not someone on a mic. "You are trespassing on secure facility A-931-Alpha. The penalty is termination." "Uh, would it matter at all if we were by total random accident?" asked Kala, "We didn't really did have a choice coming. In fact, we didn't even know this place existed."

"Negative. You have breached the NSC/Combine treaty. You will be dest..." it said and was cut off as a blast from a hill blew it apart. More blasts began shooting at the droids. "Oh, thank goodness, we're saved!" said Kala. "Don't you ever get sick of being so optimistic all the time?" said NegaMorph. Several shadowy figures, holding energy blasters were firing. The dog droids seemed to take more interest in them, firing. As the two watched one of the figures fell out of sight with an inhuman scream. "Maybe we should take advantage of this and vamoose?" suggested NegaMorph. One of the figures waved to them to come over, yelling in a strange language before firing back at the drones. Kala looked at NegaMorph and said, "I say we go with them, unless you have a better plan," she said with creepily Matt-like sarcasm. "Since you're the only being I know of on this rock that's civilized, I guess I should stick with you," said NegaMorph, "But once we're out of here, the ceasefire's over." Kala smiled, annoyingly. "Of course," she said as they got to the group.

There was not a human among them, mostly anthros and splitters and a few cyborgs. One of them spoke angrily at a lioness anthro, "Look, you can't invite every squatter we come across. They can easily be a Combine spy or- DEAR GOD, WHAT IS THAT THING?!!" That last part was the reaction to when he saw NegaMorph. The group all raised various blasters and weapons, some looking like modified mining equipment like plasma cutters or rail drivers. The lioness glared at the others who reluctantly lowered their weapons. "I am Shamala, welcome to Ios," she said. "My name is Kala and this my...traveling companion, NegaMorph," said Kala. "How ya doing?" said NegaMorph in the most indifferent tone he could muster. Shamala looked him up and down. "How badly was he hurt in your rip engine explosion?" she said. NegaMorph glared, "Oh har har," he said coldly.

"He was... born like that, if that's the right term," said Kala. "Indeed," said another, a cyborg splitter, "And what, pray tell, are you? I've never seen creatures like you before?" Kala said, "Well, I'm from a universe in the NSC..." she said and the faces of all the people present darkened. "What? What did I-" NegaMorph shushed her before she put her foot in her mouth. "I know those things the Combine say about the NSC," said NegaMorph, "It's all empty air, believe me. The Combine doesn't have anything nice to say about anyone." "Like you?" said Kala teasingly. NegaMorph growled at her, "One of these days, Kala, one of these days..."

The cyborg spoke again. "Well, we can safely say they're not spies. Well, not combine ones, anyway. I say we throw em back out and take bets on who gets atomized first." Shamala glared at him. "Stow it. You know as well as I do its all propaganda, specially about the virus on Sy-Yong," she said.

Kala felt this was not a good time for a complete history of the NSC, so she switched the topic. "So what are you guys doing here? You don't seem like the type to coexist with Combine." "Nobody coexists with Combine," stated NegaMorph. "We were the inhabitants of Ios, a mining station for the Combine. They decided two years ago that it would make better use as a communications facility. We were in the way," said Shamala, leaving it at that. "Well this is a delightful scene," said NegaMorph grimly, "We're stuck out in the middle of nowhere with Combine drones after our blood for what could be the rest of our lives."

"This way," said one of the people, pointing to a tunnel. The tunnel led to a huge crater which had a shanty city and a- "Is that a holo-cloak?" said NegaMorph, spotting a prototype that had been stolen by teleporter from an empire ship a month ago. Shamala nodded and said, "We've managed to salvage many things to continue surviving." NegaMorph was about to say that the cloak was his employers but stopped when Kala kicked him in the back of the shin. The brief contact caused them both to wince in pain. One of the others might have noticed a spark or two, but they ignored it.

"We live here under constant threat of attack. The Combine would kill us all. They even call us terrorists just to make sure we cannot trade," said Shamala. Kala thought about something and said, "Hey, how did you get that?" Shamala smirked, "Used the old ore teleporter to steal it off some cruiser in the badlands." "Look at all this stuff," said NegaMorph, "Did you manage to swipe a generator or did you find some other meanings of producing power?" "This crater was the old city," said Shamala The underground reactors were safe. We could see if we could find your friends too."

---

Meanwhile, the North Star was heading through Combine territory. Since Kala's signal wasn't appearing in NSC or Empire-controlled areas, the Combine territory seemed the next logical choice. "This sucks," said Wilson from one of the scanner panels. Techo tried to make small talk to get rid of the atmosphere of worry, mostly about meeting a Combine ship and being evaporated by its dark energy cannon. "Hey, Chip, CPS is getting a new satellite system for taking down EXP bombs..." he began and jumped as an alarm began.

A voice echoed over the comms. "Unidentified ship. I am shipmaster Katan of the Combine security vessel, Crax...state you business." "We're not here to pick a fight," said Matt, "One of our crew got teleported in a freak accident and we believe she is in your area." "Nevertheless, you have trespassed in our territory. You will be boarded and your ship will be impounded. Do not resist," said Katan's voice. A small needle-shaped ship began to fly towards the North Star. "The enforcer team aboard will take your captain into custody," said Katan, cutting the comm.

"Boy, these guys are rude," said Draco, "I bet they throw a lousy party. Matt made frantic hand signals to Draco. "Shut up, shut up!" he hissed. Unfortunately, Draco didn't notice Matt. "I mean, what kind of lowbrow society has the status quo of being an unneighborly demolisher?" he said. Matt pointed nervously at the flashing light on the comm controls. "Er, Draco? Please stop being diplomatic." "What are you talking about?" said Draco, "They can't hear me." Matt grabbed Draco and twisted him round to the flashing light. "Yes they can," he said.

The sensor techie suddenly paled. "They're charging their main guns," he said. "Time to motor!" called Matt, "Get engines on maximum burn!" The North Star twisted to port, narrowly missing a purple beam that sliced a nearby asteroid in half. "I think we're smegged," said Techo worriedly as the North Star dodged more blasts from the now-pursuing ship. "Man, those guys are hot-blooded," said Draco. "Quiet, this is your fault!" snapped Matt. The North Star rolled to avoid a glowing energy orb that blew up another asteroid. A few missiles were fired back, only to explode harmlessly on the Combine vessel's hull. "Faster!" gibbered Matt as another shot practically parted the ships hull. "Can't this thing go Mach 7 or something?" shouted Chip. "No point, Combine ships go Mach 12," said Techo, turning the ship too slow. The explosion threw everyone to the deck. "Over there," said Draco, pointing to a small moon in the asteroid belt. "Better then nothing," said Matt, "step on it."

Just then, Morph came into the bridge. He was still recovering from Cole's 'refusal', thus why he was in a wheelchair and covered in bandages. "What's going on?" he asked. He was just in time to hear Matt's request to 'step on it'. "Okey-dokey," said Morph and moved his wheelchair over to a floor panel with a big button on it. With a couple of grunts, he hopped out of his wheelchair and onto the button. The afterburners on the ship blazed and suddenly the moon was getting bigger, extremely fast. "SLOWER, SLOWER!" screamed Techo

---

Meanwhile, Kala and NegaMorph had just finished their tour. "This place isn't so bad," said Kala. "Better get used to it," grumbled NegaMorph, "Cause it looks we're stuck here for a while. And just when I was almost finished with the Viral Clones too." One of the rebels walked in. "Hey, Shamala wants to see you," he said, casually holding a Combine pulse rifle.

The two of them followed the rebel toward where the lioness was. Shamala was sitting at a computer terminal. When the two walked in, she turned it to show a ship sitting at the end of a huge trench. Several figures could be seen arguing. Kala winced as she recognized Matt trying to choke Morph to death. She couldn't lipread but she had the feeling that the crash had been Morph-related.

"This ship had crashed here a few minutes ago," said Shamala, "Seeing as how some of the crew aboard were as unusual as you two, we thought you might know them." NegaMorph said, "Nope! Maybe you should leave em...OW!" he said as Kala poked him again. "Yeah," said Kala, "That's my crew out there." "Well, it appears that your tenure here will be relatively short," said Shamala, "We can provide an escort to bring you there."

"Matt would happily help out if you said anything, maybe give you a ride to the NSC," said Kala. NegaMorph grumbled about Silvia being unable to find anything. "That would be most appreciated," said Shamala, with a notably softer voice. However, she did noticed NegaMorph's expression. "Your friend seems less than satisfied." NegaMorph snapped. "Oh yeah, I just LOVE being a society reject," he said, angrily before stopping. He could sense something. Shamala glared at him. "You're welcome to stay here as long as you wish," she said.

"Wait a sec..." said NegaMorph, his tail twitching in many directions. "What is it?" asked Kala. Suddenly NegaMorph's largest eye's pupil began glowing white. "The last clone," he said and he quickly hurried out the door. Shamala looked a bit surprised. "Does this happen often?" she said before seeing Kala's horrified voice. "What is it?" she asked. "I can't let him get to that clone," said Kala. "What clone?" asked Shamala, "What is with your friend?" "He was never my friend," said Kala as she ran out, leaving a thoroughly-confused Shamala behind. Shamala looked at her men, "I don't know what's going on, but go detain Mr. Nega before he causes trouble, and go get Kala's friends here before the patrols find them."

---

NegaMorph was on the prowl. He had locked onto the Viral Clone's signal and was racing towards it. His fluid body allowed him to squeeze between tight spaces, so he wasn't being held back by anything natural. A couple of miners, holding line cutter guns stepped in front of him. "Hey, Man, Shamala said to stop," one of them said. "Out of my way, weaklings!" shouted NegaMorph. He morphed into a black red-eyed version of Yin. He hosed the miners out of his way before resuming his usual form and continuing with his chase. A third miner, holding another line gun, blasted him through the midsection, and was shocked as hell when he simply came back together. NegaMorph growled and shifted to a negative version of Fudgy and shot sticky dark chocolate back at the miner, gluing him in place.

A hail of plasma fire shot him in the back. "NegaMorph!" yelled Kala, with three more miners. "Stay out of this, Kala!" yelled NegaMorph as he extended a cannon out of his right arm, "I need that Viral Clone. I need to be complete." The miners began shooting, trying to push him back while Kala fired her own plasma. For a minute it seemed to work, then NegaMorph let loose a burst of his shadow energy, knocking everyone down...and causing a shower of sparks from the Holo-cloak. "He damaged the Holo-cloak!" called one of the miners, "We have to repair it before the Combine spot us!" The three miners quickly left to tend to the Holo-cloak.

Kala glared at NegaMorph. "Now look what you did! You've probably killed these people!" she yelled angrily, actually making NegaMorph take a step back. "Their fate was inevitable," said NegaMorph, "Besides, your cheery little friends are going to pick them up anyways. None of my business." "You know that the North Star won't hold everyone..." she said and was cut off by a distant horn-like noise.

--

The crew were surprised to discover Kala's signature on the asteroid. They were even more surprised to see that it was in a crater that been partially converted into a city. But the biggest surprise for anyone was that several Combine battle vehicles were heading towards them. The two looted APC's came to a stop and three anthro's got out. "Shamala sent us," said one, "You might wanna hide your ship." "Uh, you sure we should trust them?" said Chip, "Didn't you say that humans were the minority among Combine?" Matt looked at em. "What humans?" he said in a 'matter of fact' voice. The first anthro, a snake anthro, sniggered. "You'll be surprised," he said. A horn-like noise got his attention. "Oh damn. Get to cover, Combine patrol," he hissed, heading for a line of rocks. The gang didn't need to be told twice. They ran as fast at they could for cover behind the rocks.

Just in time too as a three legged tripod walked over the hill, followed by two others, several strange looking VTOL's and two choppers that Matt recognized. "HK choppers," said Matt, "great." "So that's where those tripods come from," said Chip, "I knew they were alien, but I wasn't sure which race." "They're heading for the city, but the cloak hides it from them," said the horrified miner. "Cloak?" said Chip, "Well, I am detecting some kind of cloaking technology, but I think it's damaged." "Damn it, I knew Shamala shouldn't have trusted those two," said the Miner, turning to shoot them, only for Matt to snatch the gun off him. "We can help," he said. "But these are Combine vehicles," said the miner. "Don't worry," said Draco, "We have a lot of experience smashing vehicles, civilian and military." "Mostly by accident," added Matt, heading for one of the looted APC's.

--

When the explosions started, NegaMorph didn't pay any attention to them. All that mattered was getting that last Viral Clone. But first he had to get rid of the annoying female who refused to stand aside. Kala waved a paw around as the first dropships and gunships began attacking. "I thought you couldn't kill people?" she said angrily. "You've practically killed everyone." "I'm not directly responsible for that," said NegaMorph, "I wasn't planning on breaking their stupid cloaking device. All I wanted was that Viral Clone. And you're standing in the way." "You are, you'll always be a murderer," said Kala coldly and ran off to try to help. Screams and cries for help could be heard as the Combine forces began slaughtering the city. NegaMorph growled and said, "What does she know? That little lap dog's been in luxury most of her life. She never had to struggle for survival or acceptance." Then he focused on his true purpose: the final Viral Clone.

The clone in question, V-Link was running around. It had come to this city to get away from the war, preferring not to fight. He'd already had to dodge several Combine squads and miner response teams. He turned a corner to see another experiment, similar to V-624 except for the fur color, fighting with some miners. He preferred her over the other experiment he could sense. He ran over to the experiment, who noticed him. "Oh, there you are," she said, "You could have picked a better time and place to show up. You better hide until the fighting's over." "Who's your friend?" said V-Link, referring to the other experiment he'd sensed. "I'm not her friend," said a voice from an alley's shadows. NegaMorph emerged, smirking. "Thanks for keeping him in one place," he said. "You're not getting this one," said Kala. "I'm afraid I disagree," said NegaMorph. "I have no idea what will happen when you assimilate all the Viral Clones, but I'm going to let you," said Kala. "Get out of the way now, or you're going to find out what you can live through."

V-Link looked at them. "You're from the empire? You should stick together more," he said, spitting a huge glob of blue goo at them. "What the?" said Kala as the goo bound itself to her left wrist and NegaMorph's right wrist. "You have got to be kidding," said NegaMorph as he tried to remove the goo. "Have fun, empire lackies." V-Link said and turned to leave, only for one of NegaMorph's tentacles to grab him. "You're going nowhere except into me," said NegaMorph. His tail speared the helpless Viral Clone and quickly converted him into black liquid which was sucked up by the small mouth on the end. Kala looked like she was ready to throw up. She finally said, "Ok...undo this then and get lost."

NegaMorph tried to melt his arm out, but the goo was too sticky. "Uh oh," said NegaMorph. "What do you mean 'uh oh'?" demanded Kala. "Don't worry, all we need to do is get some mud on this stuff," said NegaMorph. Kala stared at NegaMorph and looked around...and then yelled so loud that NegaMorph was nearly blasted out the goo anyway, "WE'RE ON A BLITZNAKING ASTEROID!!!" "Ok, ok, don't blow my head off," said NegaMorph. "Don't tempt me," said Kala. "Look, dirt is basically ground-down rock. All we need to do is smash a boulder to dust and get it wet."

Several unarmed miners ran by, yelling and screaming. A minute later, a squad of Overwatch troopers ran round the corner. "There's two more, ionize them," said the leader and raised his pulse rifle, its ion pulse launcher glowing. If the blast hit, there'd be nothing left of the two. Another trooper managed to fire a pulse launcher shot into a retreating miner. The miner was outlined in white energy before vanishing. NegaMorph watched the miner's vaporization with interest. He turned to Kala and said, "You thinking what I'm thinking?" "Ok, you want to get vaporized too?" said Kala, pointing out the flaw. A hail of pulse rounds nearly removed her head. "Erm, run?" she suggested. The two of them ran in opposite directions. Only they forgot about the elasticity of the goo, which snapped them back together. The Combine troopers sniggered. "Twenty creds says I can vaporize the freaky one," said one of the troopers.

That was a big mistake. NegaMorph's eyes flared bright red. "NOBODY CALLS ME FREAK!!" he yelled. He tackled the one who insulted him, clawing and biting like a mad cat. Kala squeaked as she was sent round like a morningstar into one of the other Combine troopers' faces, knocking him across the street. The trooper being attacked by NegaMorph managed to blast him in the arm. The arm that was shot happened to be the one bound to V-Link's goo. The blast severed the arm and Kala was flung like a slingshot. Kala stared at the arm and almost fainted. "Your arm," she said in a high pitched voice. The remaining stump was healing back slowly, but in his berserk state, NegaMorph barely noticed. He kept on pummeling with his other limbs. The Combine trooper finally stopped moving and what sounded like a high pitched radio feedback issued from the helmet along with a female A.I giving a readout to what seemed to meant for the others.

Kala decided since she wasn't bound to NegaMorph anymore, or at least the conscious part of NegaMorph, now would be the best time to vacate the premises. Unfortunately, NegaMorph's arm had other ideas, shooting back to reattach. "I hate you so much," said Kala so coldly that there was almost a blizzard. Kala threw a couple of plasma orbs at the arm, hoping to knock it out if not destroy it.

When the Combine back up arrived they just stood there, confused as hell by the scene of NegaMorph and Kala's trying to strangle each other. Their anger blocked the soul shade/shine's reactions, but it eventually built up to let out an explosion of dark and light energy. The Combine troopers came too to see the two experiments had legged it. "Get after them!" yelled the squad leader.

--

Kala peered out of the ruined building as the troopers ran by. A phase cannon blast from a strider on the crater ridge blew apart the holo-cloak as they watched. NegaMorph looked a little uneasy at all the devastation. "For the record," he said, "I wouldn't have told the Empire about this place. I'd have just said it was a useless rock so they'd pass over it." "Yes, I'm sure all the dead miners would really be thankful," said Kala sharply.

"I think the coast is clear," she said, getting out first. NegaMorph yanked back the cuffs, causing Kala to be pulled out of the way of a stray missile. "I don't want to have drag around your carcass," said NegaMorph. "They're in there. Squad theta, move in...what the blazes?" said the voice of a Combine trooper, cut off by an explosion. The rattle of pulse rifle fire coupled with the sound of plasma fire drowned them out. A second later a Combine trooper, his helmet making the same feedback was half-knocked through the doorway. After a minute it went silent. "...you go first," said Kala.

"Kala, is that you?" called a voice. Kala's ears perked up. "Oh, finally," said Kala, "We can finally leave." She looked back to see NegaMorph gone, his lower arm shed like a lizard's tail. "Bleh," she said as the dead trooper was yanked aside to let Matt peer in. "WOW, NegaMorph was here, I presume." he said. "Yeah, it's his fault that the Combine found this place," said Kala. "By the way, there are some people who could really used a lift to somewhere civilized." "We met them," said Matt helping her out. Shamala and a few dozen miners and their families were there too. "It seems that your companion has left us to our fate," she said. "He doesn't care for anyone but himself," said Kala coldly. Another miner squad ran round the corner. "We've cornered the traitor at our shuttle. He was trying to hotwire it," he said. Matt said simply, "Lemme guess, he looks like the spawn of a cheese nightmare?"

Meanwhile, NegaMorph was trying futilely to get the shuttle running for him. He looked over his shoulder every once and a while to make sure no one would come near him. Several miners ran round the corner in front of the shuttle, followed by "Matt? Dammit, what's he doing here?" growled NegaMorph. "Yoo hoo. Neeegaaaa...surrender. Don't make me come in there. I've had a really bad day," Matt called. NegaMorph's dorsal spines extended to their full length in warning. "Back off!" snarled NegaMorph, "The holo-cloak was an accident. I've got all the Viral Clones now, there's nothing left to fight for." "No, there is, I want my sister back, you little blob!" called back Matt. "I'm not her keeper," said NegaMorph, "and I don't think I'd want to hand her over." Suddenly he heard something and looked up, "Ah, speak of the devil, here comes my ride."

Suddenly a laser blast shot into the building next to Matt and the others, the explosion knocking them down. More blasts began pummeling the remaining Combine forces too. Matt watched as the shuttle took off, heading for a steamlined black ship hovering over the crater. "GET BACK HERE, YOU CREEP!" Matt yelled, throwing a plasma orb which missed by miles.

Chip, however, didn't miss. He hefted up a large bazooka and fired a missile. It hit the side of the black ship, but it apparently didn't do anything. "Where's the boom?" said Matt and watched gloomily as the ship warped away. "It's not supposed to go 'boom'," said Chip, "It's supposed to go 'beep, beep, beep'." He held up a small device with a map on its screen. Matt looked from the scanner to Chip and back again. "I could kiss you," he said happily. "I'd rather you not," said Chip, "Now if I know those guys, they'll be heading straight for their headquarters." Matt nodded. "Good, maybe we can vandalize a few hundred empire ships too," he said happily.

---

Meanwhile, in the upper atmosphere of Earth, the lycanthropy pod appeared in a flash from the jump engines' activation. It stayed in the air for a second or two before falling downwards towards Earth. The engines and navigation system was burnt off during re-entry, but the rest of the pod remained unharmed. It eventually landed in a forest in France, fortunately, not close to any population.

The pod cooled off in the crater it had made in the ground. When the metal was once again safe to touch, the pod activated its last function. It opened up with a hiss, sending a cloud of sleep-inhibiting steam out. The steam soon awakened the pod's passenger. About one minute after the pod opened, a large werewolf climbed out. It growled and looked around with its red eyes. Detecting no prey, it loped off, leaving the useless pod behind.

There's another chapter. Sorry it took me so long to put this up. I was on a week-long vacation in Baltimore. Hopefully, I'll be able to finish this story before the month's up, but that might not be completely possible. So we're finally going to see where Silvia roosts. The gang's going to need a lot of luck where they're going. And don't think NegaMorph's completely finished yet. He still has a role to play in this story. And the werewolf part's signifigance is not going to be revealed for a while. But that will come up again. Hope that I'll be updating again real soon. Please review.

* * *


	4. Dante's Inferno

**Retrieval Saga**

**Crossing the Rubicon**

**Chapter 4: Dante's Inferno**

The North Star was sitting in an asteroid field near the empires border. Matt and the crew had tracked Silvia and her ship for weeks, finally handing a copy of the signal to the NSC special services. "For the last time. You do NOT have permission to pursue beyond our borders. It's bad enough you caused an interfaction incident with the Combine," said General Orsen. "But sir," said Techo, "This could be a chance to discover the Empire's home planet..." "...That a major fleet is better suited for then a small mercenary vessel. You will return to CPS command for a new mission," said General Orsen.

Matt spoke up. "But sir..." but was interrupted. "I SAID NO! I am still your commanding officer," said General Orsen, "Besides, no non-empire ship has survived going that far into the badlands." He then ended the communication link. "Then it's time to break the record," muttered Matt. Techo looked over. "You realize that we'll all end up either in the mind wipe center or in Kryos, right?" he said in a 'matter of fact' voice. Matt shrugged. "Only if we screw up and survive," he said.

--

The North Star jumped out of warp on what sensors said was a modification of Earth, near where Pluto should have been. All that was there was...half of Pluto. "What kind of solar system is this?" asked Kala. Matt had decided not to enlighten the experiments just yet as it would have led to too many protests. Techo looked at the readout. "Definitely Sol R-213. I think that's Pluto over there...or what's left of it," he said.

Chip stared at Pluto's remains. "Why are we here?" he said suspiciously. "I've heard that there was a major Empire outpost here," said Matt, "Silvia and NegaMorph might have docked there. It might be possible for us to sneak in and take Silvia." Chip stared at Matt incredulously. "We came here on another scheme to rescue your sister?" he said angrily. Everyone could remember the disastrous idea with Jekyll. "Cool your horsepower," said Matt, "I'm not planning on using anything hazardous to bring out her personality. We're just gonna grab her and hightail it out of here."

The North Star flew round the edge of a piece of Pluto to almost plow into a vessel easily the size of a planet cracker, scooping up planet fragments. Everyone tensed, expecting to be atomized in a barrage of laserfire. When nothing happened, they relaxed slightly. "I think that thing's just a harvester," said Chip. "Don't worry, we got a cloak in place," said Techo. This was apparently just as well as two empire gunships floated into view, obviously on escort duty. "We better be careful," said Chris, "Who knows how sensitive their radar is." They all stood still for a few minutes. "I think I'm going to wet myself," said Morph.

The whole system was a hive of empire activity. Hardly a minute went by when they would have to stop to allow an empire ship past or have to steer round a minefield. "When you said there was a major Empire outpost, I didn't think you'd be referring to a fortress," said Chip. Finally Earth came into view and it was a biggest shock of all. Firstly, it was almost unseeable behind the sheer number of empire capitol ships. Secondly, there was no green visible, just grey land and clouds, punctuated by a huge space elevator. "Ok, this has got to be more than a simple outpost," said Chip, "That's got to be one of Hamsterviel's greater bases." "Uh oh. Now I remember where I read the code. This is their primary forward base," said Techo and wilted under the group glares of the gang.

"Ooooh," said Matt, "It's easy. Me, one of you guys, Kala and 2 others go aboard in a pod. We can get aboard on the same deck, grab her, and be half way to central station before anyone even notices the footprints." Kala looked at Stitch, "Er, is it too late for a will?" "Look, to show that I not afraid, I'm volunteering myself to go," said Matt, "Anyone else who wants to volunteer take one step forward."

Morph suddenly was very lonely as everyone else shot back so far that they were nearly outside the ship. "Thank you for volunteering, Morph," said Matt, "We'll be getting ready to board their station in 5 minutes." Morph looked really nervous and then said, "Dang it, now I really did wet myself." Matt stared and gulped. "That's acid..." he said weakly, looking at the small hole. He looked through to see the cafeteria, "...least it can't make it taste any worse."

--

Matt, Kala, and Morph were soon squeezed into a single escape pod. "Ok guys, prepare yourself to enter Hamsterviel's space fortress," said Matt. Morph was frantically muttering, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home..."

The pod shot out straight towards the side of the space elevator, hitting the side and smashing through before apparently welding itself in place. Matt opened the door and a half smashed droid fell inside, sparking wildly. "After you," said Matt to Kala, holding the door open. "Sometimes, it doesn't pay to be a lady," muttered Kala as she climbed out. Matt went next and had to pull Morph out of the pod... several times. "Ok," said Matt after finally getting Morph out the pod. "We have..." he said and saw a sign, "Landed in the droid equivalent of a barracks...ah." Luckily the droids appeared to be on recharge mode. "Ok, doubtlessly there'll be someone coming to see what crashed into their base. So we need to get a decent head start before they come," said Matt.

Matt opened the door and looked out into a corridor. Surprisingly there were no alarms or sirens or even a cry of 'there he is, get him', which unnerved him a bit. He was used to it by now. "Uh, Matt, do you even know where Silvia's room is?" asked Kala. Matt walked over to a computer panel and poked it. "Hey, which way to the general's room?" "Uh, Matt, I don't it's just gonna-" Kala was interrupted by the AI responding in a high-pitched voice, "Which general are you looking for? Silvia? Virustoxico? Dante?" "Erm, Silvia please," said Matt, a bit worried by the AI's eagerness. "Oh, that's easy: end of the hall, turn right, turn left..." Matt zoned out after that as the AI droned on for the best part of 3 minutes. His brain came back in time to catch "...pass the particle conduit and it's the third door on the right." Matt turned around to see everyone else except for Morph looked half asleep. "Erm, can you give me that on disk?" "Why certainly, sir," said the AI and a CD popped out of the computer panel. "Is there anywhere else you'd like to visit? We have super advanced labs of both robotics and genetics..." "No thank you," said Matt quickly.

The group slowly sneaked through the station after waking up Morph who had been completely asleep, narrowly avoiding several patrols and almost at one point running into Captain Dante. Finally they got to Silvia's room and Matt was about to hack the door when Silvia opened it from the other side. The two stared for a full minute before Matt grabbed her and pushed her back in the room, locking it behind him when the rest of the gang were inside. "What are you doing here?!" yelled Silvia. "Just attempting to have a little brother-to-sister chat," said Matt, "as soon as I can get her out." Matt waved to one of the troopers who pulled out what looked like a cross between a TV remote and a tazer. "This may sting, first we stun you," he said and did just that. "Quick before..." he started as the door opened to reveal at least 7 destroyer droids, Dante, and NegaMorph "...before someone finds you?" finished Dante evilly. "Get your hands off of her!" yelled NegaMorph and he fired a volley of fangs at Matt. Matt dodged them but what he didn't dodge was Silvia's fist coming down on his head. "I wised up from last time," she said to Matt as he passed out.

--

Matt came to a while later. He couldn't tell how long but his head felt like someone had hit it with a hammer. He looked around in a dazed way to see he'd been given a brand new pair of grav-cuffs to wear. "Oh," he said as his memory reminded him how he'd gotten there. He looked around till he spotted Dante. "You, where's the rest of my team? If you so much as gave Kala or any of them a cold, I'll rip your head off and use it for cannon ammo!" he yelled. Matt looked around and saw various familiar faces; Silvia, NegaMorph, Virustoxico, Dr. Johnson, and to Matt's discomfort, Splicer and Tuatara, who were both looking ready to tear Matt apart. "Ok...why the big gathering?" he said in a fake cheery voice. It was either that or gibber in terror.

"Oh, we've been waiting a long time to have you here," said Dante. "Some of us longer than others," growled Tuatara. "Hey, Tuatara, guess you know about the big family reunion in New York," said Matt, the sensible part of his brain cowering as it heard what he said before reminding him what Tuatara had done to him back with the Tennysons. Tuatara growled but before he could do anything, Splicer said, "Back off, lizard boy. I call dibs on him. I've got a bigger vendetta against him than you." "Hi, slimy," said Matt's mouth before his brain could stop it. "Dante, did you give him painkillers?" said Silvia, sighing as Virustoxico had to jump on Splicer to hold him back. Dante nodded then went, "Ah nuts."

"I suggest you put a lid on that voicebox of yours," said Silvia, "The Emperor has put a rather large bounty on that organ and we're more than tempted to take him up on it." Matt promptly shut his mouth. "Anyways, you're hardly in a position to make insults or threats," said Johnson. "Like what? You may have got me but my ships still there. It'll be out this system and will be back with so much friends, you'll be picking bits of battleship out of this system for weeks," said Matt happily. Dante smirked and spoke into his comm. A blue tint fell across the observation room's window and the North Star was revealed, a little translucent but still there. "Looks to me like they're still there...for now." said Dante. "_**Of course, we have plenty of weapons to change that,**_" said Virustoxico.

Matt sighed and said in a defeated tone. "What do you want?" He had no wish to risk the experiments or Lilo. Johnson spoke then, "Well, to put it frank, we want your brain, or at least the AI currently in there. I believe you know him. Draconus." Matt said simply, "Who?" "I've forgotten, you've been in control for most of your 'relationship'. And note that I said 'most'." Johnson went over to the computer and entered a command, causing a video file to pop up. Matt gulped as it showed footage from when Draconus had gotten loose on Draco Island. The footage was from one of the droids that had been with Silvia. "Oh, him," said Matt innocently. "Yes, a particularly powerful AI was required to override your mind, thanks to you being from A-001," said Johnson, "Quite how you've managed to keep suppressed for this long is beyond me, but you won't have to worry about if for much longer."

"And in theory, what'll happen if I say 'get stuffed' to you?" said Matt rudely. Johnson sighed and nodded to Dante. Dante simply said into his comm., "Fire at will."

--

Meanwhile, back on the North Star, the gang was getting worried. "Those guys have been away too long," said Draco. "I agree," said Chip, "They could have been captured, or worse."

A crew member walked up to them...and vanished when the panel next to him became a fireball. Techo was first up. "WHAT IN HELL?" he yelled as more explosions were heard and sirens began to wail. "Uh, guys," said Reuben, "I know I'm kinda the coward of this group, but I believe I'm in the right position when I say ABANDON SHIP!!!"

Outside the room, fires were everywhere along with panicking crew, all trying to get a place on the escape pods. Techo looked out a window to see more blasts from the space elevator ionizing escape pods almost as soon as they cleared the North Star. "Ok, I'm open to suggestions as to how we escape," said Chris. "The boarding pods have stealth shielding, not like the main ship's cloak, we can use them," yelled Techo above the noise. "Better than nothing!" yelled Draco.

The pod was a tight fit, having been designed for only a few people with the rest of the space for assault gear. The pod Matt had taken to the elevator had to have been modified over a week and the experiments could see why when they were crammed in. The pod shot out of the burning North Star barely a minute before a trio of pulse blasts breached its core, blowing it apart. "That's gonna be a problem when we try to get home," said Draco. "If we live long enough," said Chip.

--

Matt just stared dumbly as the North Star was knocked into visibility by the first salvo. Immediately the surrounding ships began to mercilessly blow pieces off the vessel. "_**There might be a chance we could call off the attack,**_" said Virustoxico, "_**But you know gunners, they tend to get carried away so easily.**_" Matt turned his gaze on Virustoxico. It was such pure hatred behind it that Virustoxico turned away, shielding his nervousness by pointing out a particularly skillful shot. He didn't want to say who the glare had reminded him off. "I do enjoy fireworks," said Splicer, "especially if I know someone who's hurt me is getting hurt in the process." Matt just turned to glare at the floor.

The only two people who looked even remotely sickened by Dante's actions were NegaMorph and Silvia. This had not been in the plan. Dante had noticed NegaMorph's expression, "What's the matter, NegaMorph? You're not actually going to miss them, are you?" "Who? Me? Nah. It'd probably be better if they're all gone," NegaMorph said with an uneasy voice. "Good, cause the gunner crews aren't missing either," said Dante. He stopped when Silvia said coldly, "Shut up, you little worm." Matt looked at the two oddly. Silvia, he could understand. She was, after all, his sister deep inside. But why did NegaMorph looked regretful?

Johnson watched as the North Star finally exploded. He looked thoughtfully at a piece that seemed to be moving with more of a purpose than the other debris. After all, security still hadn't found the device that Matt and his team had used to get aboard and the station AI quite frankly had the brains of cream cheese. He decided it was nothing and said, "Well, I will leave you lot to give the Emperor the good news and I will ready my...equipment for making sure Draconus is the one to greet him." He looked over at the others. "Try not to break him," he said with an almost psychic way of working out what they had planned once he, Nega and Silvia weren't in the room.

As soon as they left, Tuatara turned on Splicer and growled, "When the Emperor's done, I'll be the one who ends him. He was the one who destroyed my back and shattered me." "Big deal," said Splicer, "He did the same to me and damaged my psyche at the same time. I think I deserve to kill him more." Dante sighed. "Hey, you could both kill him, like those wishbones you get in chicken," he said, evilly. Tuatara and Splicer looked at each other. "That works for me," said Tuatara. "Which ever side gets the head gets the wish," said Splicer. "But wait till Hamsterviel's done with him first," added Dante, "Right now, he needs some time alone with his thoughts."

The group walked out, talking about what they'd do once Matt was dead, turning off the light. They shoulda stayed as the white glow that was Matt's gaze woulda probably made them think twice about going near him.

* * *

There's another chapter. This was actually done much sooner than you'd think. I just wasn't sure where the dividing line between this chapter and the next one should be. Anyways, looks like Matt has gone really over his head this time. With the North Star gone along with most of its crew, it would seem that he's completely at the mercy of his captors. Or is he? The next chapter is going to be much longer than this one and it'll be here very soon. Until then, please review.


	5. The Mouth of Leviathan

**Retrieval Saga**

**Crossing the Rubicon**

**Chapter 5: The Mouth of Leviathan**

The pod shot through the atmosphere. On board the experiments and two mercenaries were not being bounced around as they were squashed together. "When are we landing?" moaned Techo. "I think I've got pod sickness." "You better not throw up on me, you hear me?" said Contrinus.

Techo groaned and suddenly there was a crashing noise and the pod came to an abrupt stop. "I think we're here." said Chris, dazed after the crash had caused him to knock heads with Hyena. "Where's here?" asked Stitch. "A very good question," said Chip, "Let's hope we don't find out the hard way."

Chris managed to push a button and the door blew off and water came in, alot. Luckily they'd only landed in a stream. What was horrible was that the water was almost black with dirt. The outside wasn't much better. A few dead shrubs were across the landscape but that was it, apart from the huge industrial shipyard on the horizon and the towering shape of the epace elevator's main tower heading up into the clouds. "Bleh," said Contrinus, "Hasn't Hamsterviel ever heard of environmental control?" Chris shrugged and jumped as his visor, detecting the air, turned on the filter mask. "Obviously not. If we hadn't had the helmets we'd be dead. I suppose you guys are ok...uh oh," he said, ducking as a hovering machine, balancing on two jet turbines pointed down flew overhead. "It's probably a patrol drone," said Chip, "If we don't do anything, it probably won't notice us."

The group walked glumly through the lifeless landscape, eventually reaching a cluster of buildings that reminded Techo a little too much of the Sy-Yong medical lab. A dozen people in environmental suits, under the watchful gaze of 5 battle droids were working on a cluster of vents. One of the droids looked over. It was a less streamlined version of the ones the gang had faced before and obviously a lot thicker too. "Hey you, back in work detail," it said, gesturing towards the others. "It thinks we're workers," said Techo. "Let's play along," said Chris, "This is the worst place to attract attention."

One of the workers, some kind of reptile anthro looked over at them. "Hey, best look busy. You wanna be in Dr Johnson's next batch of volunteers?" he whispered before showing Chris how to fix one of the filters. Techo didn't need help and the person he'd partnered with was watching in shock. Finally the droid pointed towards a set of more shabby looking buildings in the distance. "That's it for today, get back to your area."

"I hope we have some way of finding Matt and the others before we meet some superiors with higher brainpower," said Contrinus. The anthro and the others looked over at that. "The Traveller's here?" he said in shock. "Huh?" said Chris, pretending to confused, "Yeah, our buddy Matt, we got sent to separate work groups. You're not thinking he's Matt Lynch, right? C'mon, lots of people are named Matthew." "You know him...you're Chris..." said the Anthro, looking like all his birthday and Christmas presents had come at once in a giant Easter egg. "Ok, fine, you found me out," said Chris, "but keep it down. You guys are probably the only people on this planet who don't want us dead." "There's hundreds of us here. The empire staff all live in that place we were repairing while we...well...you can see for yourself," he said as the airlock circled in a jerky motion.

There were faint fumes in the corridor beyond. Obviously there was not as much maintenance for the help. A few panicked at first when they saw the experiments. "Relax people, we're harmless," said Chip. "Yeah, nothing to fe...fe...AH-CHOO!" Draco let out a loud sneeze that also created a large fireball. The place seemed to freeze with one of those moments that would either go into apologies and welcoming, or sharp pointy death. Luckily it was the first choice as the people welcomed them into a large cavernous room where the majority of people were. It was a strange mix, almost any humanoid species was present there, looking at the newcomers in confusion. A few were obviously very ill, most likely from the fumes leaking in.

"So nice to be warmly welcomed for once," said Chip as he shook hands with a bear anthro. "Yeah," sniffed Draco, "not having people try to ki...ki...AH-CHOO!" This time a lightning bolt came out and blew out an overhead light. "What is with you?" asked Techo, "You haven't sneezed like that since New York." "I think he's having an allergic reaction," said Contrinus. "With what, there's nothing here like back in that sewer, except the grime, the stench and the..." "Bears?" pointed out Stitch. "Nah," said Draco, "that's sil...sil...AH-CHOOO!" Everyone looked through the large hole in the wall the plasma blast created. "But not unfounded."

After a few minutes, it was unanimously decided that the only bear anthro in the room would go on the next shift so there would actually be something to return too. The lizard anthro talked to them, telling how the empire had just attacked mercilessly without warning one day, killing the majority of the population and enslaving the rest. "The air outside is because of their industrial buildings. They use this place to make their machines," said the anthro, who's name was Zar-Hao.

"Sounds like typical evil empire stuff," said Chip, "At least they allow a tiny amount of downtime." "True, but that's only so we aren't worked to death," said Zar-Hao, "And the food they serve is terrible. And it's worse when the intelligent robots come to supervise us." One of the humans spoke up at this "Yea, least Unit alphas as thick as a toaster," he said to general laughter.

Techo was looking out the window at the space elevator. "Yo, does anyone work at the elevator?" he said after a bit. Zar-Hao nodded. "Yes, but only the best behaved get the privilege. It has insane security and even then we only get the most dangerous jobs; cleaning the cargo railgun relays, checking circuits, that sort of thing." "That figures," said Chris, "We won't have enough time to get any raises. Sooner or later, they'll be sending some bot that'll be able to recognize and we'll be royally screwed." Zar-Hao looked thoughtful. "I may be able to help, but it will be very dangerous," he said. "Danger's something we're used to," said Draco, "and often, it's our only option."

Zar-Hao nodded and led the way to an old rusted door, marked 'Maintenance'. He pushed it open and pointed to a hatch in the floor. "It leads to the elevator's sub-level, sadly alot of the doctor's failures call it home now." he said. "Couldn't be worse than the other monstrosities we've met," said Techo. "Yeah, we once fought a Frankenstein dragon and one-mutant-hybrid-zoo," said Draco. "You saw the demon?" said Zar-Hao. "Uh, which demon?" asked Chris, "It doesn't look like some magic trinket brought to life, does it?" "No, the hybrid you mentioned. He arrived from a comet last month and killed three work details before vanishing. It was the only time the droids listened to our pleas," said the anthro. "Uh, does this guy have a glowing belt buckle with a cracked hourglass on it?" asked Chip. "Well, yes, among other things. He did start turning into different creatures," said Zar-Hao, "But he turned into a version of himself with limbs from all those different creatures." "Sounds like he got an upgrade," said Contrinus. Zar-Hao pulled the hatch open. "May the ancients be with you." he said as they climbed down.

--

Meanwhile, Morph and Kala were being held in a cell, shackles on their wrist. "What do you think they're gonna do to us?" asked Morph. "Most probably, they're gonna destroy us after they get whatever they want from us," said Kala. "Ok then," said Morph as he detached his hands and slips the shackles off, "I don't think I wanna stick around for that." Kala and the remaining merc from matt's team stared. The merc was first to speak. "You coulda done that at any point?" he said in a dull and very annoyed voice. "You didn't ask," said Morph. The merc glared daggers at Morph as Kala said, "I think you should let me loose first." "Okey-dokey," said Morph and then paused, "How do I do that?" It was Kala's turn to glare daggers at this point.

Luckily the door shot open, squishing Morph behind it and one of Dante's men came in. "NegaMorph wants to see the...where's the blob?" he said, looking around. The merc and Kala kept very straight faces as Morph slowly peered round the door, slightly flatter then a minute ago. The merc said "I dunno, the knowledge might 'HIT' us any moment," emphasizing the 'hit' part. Morph swung the door closed and said, "Did you say something?" He heard a loud clang and then a thud. Morph opened the door to see the guard lying unconscious on the ground. "Oopsies," he said.

Kala and the merc exchanged glances. "Beggars can't be choosers, get his keycard," said Kala. Morph reached into the guard's pockets and brought out both his keycard and the device for controlling the shackles. He pushed a button on the device, causing the shackles to give off a chirp like a car alarm deactivating and they fell off. The trio sneaked out. Kala was the first to spot the flaw. "Now what?" "Well, since Mr. Lynch isn't here," said the merc, "That technically makes Morph the leader due to his seniority." The two of them looked at Morph, who was playing with the shackles and somehow got his neck and tail in one. The merc looked at Kala. "...howeeever..." continued the merc slowly, "I'm relieving him of command till he works out how not to shackle his tail to his neck."

--

NegaMorph was feeling a deep sense of dissatisfaction. He would have that handing over Matt to the Emperor and having Morph and Kala to with in leisure would make him feel happy, but he still couldn't shake the feeling that something was incomplete. It probably didn't help that Matt had fallen back on his usual strategy when captured; to sing badly until either A: he was rescued, B: was released due to the bad singing or C: his captor's head exploded from aforementioned singing. NegaMorph's several eyes started to twitch before he finally yelled, "Will you shut up in there?! You're about one more flat note from having your tongue cut out!"

Matt did stop singing. "Hey, you do realize that for someone who is desperate to be accepted appearance wise, all that absorbing has really not helped, eh?" NegaMorph growled at Matt but suddenly remembered something. He had once heard Johnson say that Hyena's Shadow Clone was unstable for some reason and NegaMorph had a feeling why that was.

Matt noticed the change in glare. "Hey, why the look at me like I'm the winning lottery ticket?" he said. "I've just thought of an offer that you can't refuse," said NegaMorph. "Splendid," said Matt sarcastically, "Can you say that again with an Italian accent?" NegaMorph for once didn't suddenly start glaring again. A bad sign. When someone like NegaMorph smiled, it was cause he was saving up to be extra nasty in the near future. "Hear me out," said NegaMorph, "I'm going to offer you a free shot at Silvia. You can try to kidnap her, brainwash her, whatever, within a limited time of 30 minutes."

Matt looked at her. "What's the catch?" he said promptly and before NegaMorph could say what catch, he said, "I've been a merc for a long time. There's always a catch." "Nothing you wouldn't be glad to be rid of," said NegaMorph. When Matt looked blank, NegaMorph sighed and said, "The piece of V-627's mind in your head." Matt looked at him. "How do I know you won't leave me with the brainpower of an eggplant?" he said. "Quite frankly, I wouldn't know how to do that if I even could," said NegaMorph, "I can only assimilate Viral Clones. I'm not like Omnirus." Matt looked at NegaMorph. "...why? Thought you said I'd be dead if I tried my luck again. Now you hand me a free shot?" "I said I'd be giving you a chance," said NegaMorph, "I never said you'd actually succeed. In all probability, you'd probably fail again. Or you could use that chance to get out of here."

Matt glared. "Fine, get on with it." he said, ignoring V-627's protests. "Very well then, put it there," said NegaMorph, putting his hand through the bars. Matt was uncertain but he grasped it. Immediately, one of NegaMorph's claws scratched his skin and NegaMorph sent small tentacles into the cut and into Matt's veins. Matt twitched, then everything blacked out from the sheer agony. Having someone poke deep into the deepest parts of your mind for any reason hurts...alot.

While NegaMorph was searching for V-627's fragment, he stumbled through quite a few of Matt's memories. One of them involved what looked like a planet's core exploding with two small dragons in it, one purple, the other black. He only got a short look, a feeling of intense sorrow and personal shame before Matt's remaining psychic defenses nudged him away from that memory and in V-627's direction. V-627 wasn't that willing to go with NegaMorph. He fought off as much as he could, which was a surprisingly large amount. But NegaMorph was stronger and eventually overwhelmed him.

He went back to where that memory had been, the V-Nosy aspect of his powers making him curious and was literally blasted out by Matt's psychic repelling. He looked up in the physical world to see Matt's glaring. "Bit...too nosy," he said weakly. "What was that last part, out of curiosity?" asked NegaMorph, "Haven't seen an exploding planet's core before." Matt glared in such a way that NegaMorph jumped back, partly in shock but partly cause the cuffs holding Matt had started glowing red, along with his eyes. "None of your business," snarled Matt.

"Ok, then, I guess I'll have to hold up my end of the bargain then," said NegaMorph. He spoke into the intercom and said, "Silvia, could you come over? Matt just did something weird and I want to make sure it doesn't allow him to escape." Silvia walked in half an hour later. "This had better be...good," she said, seeing that the cuffs were still hot. "That's new," she said. As Silvia went closer to inspect, NegaMorph made his move. He shifted into Viral Digger and went straight through the floor. A few minutes later, he came back up as Viral Phantasmo and shifted to Viral Richter. He slammed the floor with his tail several times. This caused many cracks to appear, particularly under Matt and Silvia. Eventually, the floor gave way under them. And because NegaMorph weakened the floors beneath them, they ended up falling down several levels.

They ended up in a cargo bay. The droids on guard there all turned in shock as Silvia and Matt landed there. Matt was first up. The crash had smashed his cuffs. He looked as Silvia got up. "I suppose you won't give me back my mobile inhibitor?" he called up the hole. "Not a chance, smeghead," called back NegaMorph

--

Meanwhile, the survivors of the North Star were heading through the service tunnel. "I can't believe the empire wrecked this planet. I asked one of the workers how long they'd been here. Only a year," said Chris, shining a light round a corner. Techo said, "You really think Omnirus is around?" "If he is, I hope we won't have to deal with him today," said Contrinus, "Though I can't imagine why he'd want to come to this planet." "He's after AI's, right? Only Matt and Silvia are left," said Techo. "I think that's a bit of an exaggeration," said Chip, "Surely he couldn't deplete every EXP victim of their AI's. Besides, I kinda doubt that he'd be able to get to Silvia here." The other gave him angry looks. "Well, Matt on the other hand has a better chance on the account that he's her brother," said Chip hesitatingly. "Unless that Matt and his team wrecked half the station's security before he was captured," said Chris.

Stitch looked over seeing a starfish-like creature on a wall, sucking up some strange green goo. He poked it and it opened a reptilian eye in its center...then leapt on his face. "What's that?" asked Draco. "Looks like a booger spider," said Lilo, "They like to nest in noses and feed on mucus." Everyone gave Lilo an odd look. "Is that quirkiness genetic or did you get dropped on your head as a baby?" asked Hyena. The starfish finally was removed, revealing that Stitch was covered in green goop.

A scratching came from a shaft to the left. "Oh no, you think its Omnirus?" Techo said. Draco looked in and said, "Nope." "Then what is it?...ah." he said when Draco fell backwards out the shaft, out cold, because a singed Chupy was sucking on the top of Draco's head. He let go on seeing the others and burped. "Chupy!" said Lilo excitedly. "How did he get here?" asked Contrinus. "It would seem that chupacabras are an indurate species," said Chip. Chupy then leaped from Draco's head to Reuben's. "Sorta a mixed blessing, isn't it?" he said.

After they'd dragged Chupy off Reuben they headed further in, eventually coming to another ladder back up. "Guess this is the place," Techo said, climbing up and opening the hatch. The area beyond was a dead end at the end of a huge stack of shipping crates so high that the ceiling was hard to see. A huge column could be seen in the distance, a few crates shooting up it every few minutes with a 'whomph' that shook the floor. In fact the first time the floor shook so hard the hatch shut again...on Techo. "Must be storage or something," said Chip. "You think we can head up with those crates?" asked Draco. "Why yes, mum," blabbered the concussed Techo. Chris nodded. "I think that's a yes, only I think you'd better do the hacking for now," he said as Draco and Stitch helped Techo up.

Chip flexed his fingers and started typing on a computer console nearby. He suddenly paused when he heard thumping. "What was that?" he asked. "Might be some of those mutants those workers were talking about," said Contrinus. A droid that looked like a giant scarab beetle, albeit one with a chaingun for a nose peered over a crate behind Chip but in full view of the others. "Er...Chip?" said Techo, frightened back into sobriety. "Guys, I need quiet in order to work on-"

Chip was interrupted when the droid leaped from its perch and landed on Chip. "Halt," it toned, "You are under arrest for illegal trespass." The others all looked at the droid's feet. The droid looked down too. "Oh smeg, on my first work cycle too," it said, lifting up its foot. It peeled Chip off and put him down, dusting him a bit. "Nothing personal," it said before apparently realizing it was spoiling its appearance and saying, "NOW YOU WILL SURRENDER!" "Chip, a little help here!" called Draco. Chip's limbs twitched as he started babbling without much coherence, "Solar wind is a result of solar flares erupting. The poison tree frog has no natural predators. Pumice is able to float in water because it contains pockets of air."

Everyone stopped to watch until Chip finally fell over. "Is that supposed to happen?" asked the bot before asking a question that was probably a first for any arresting officer to ask, "What do I do next?" "Uh, you're supposed to take us upstairs," said Chris. "What are you doing?" hissed Techo. "Getting us to Matt," said Chris. The bot nodded and led the way, pushing them into the elevator. Unnoticed an additional figure sneaked in behind them.

--

Kala, the merc, and Morph were still sneaking around. The AI had apparently, on request given them a tour map for the space elevator. "Ya know, is it me or has Empire security really dropped the ball here?" commented the merc. "Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth," said Kala, "All I want to do is find Matt and get out of here." "What about Silvia?" asked Morph. "I don't really care right now," said Kala, "Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have Chloe back too. But I think it was a mistake to try to do so here."

It was at that moment when they heard the crash that was the result of Matt's...agreement with NegaMorph and the aforementioned guy walked out of Matt's cell. "...asking if I would give back his gear, the cheek of that guy...figures," he said adding the last word when he saw the trio of escapees. "Oh, it so figures that'd it be you two," said NegaMorph, growling slightly.

Kala was also glaring and her paws were already charging plasma orbs. "You...you were ready to let those people die back on that asteroid and then you left us to be shot to bits by the Combine," she snarled. "I didn't mean for that to happen," said NegaMorph, "If you hadn't stood in my way, I wouldn't fire the shot that shorted out the holo-cloak." "How can you be such a self centered jerk? Not even Hyena's as bad as you and he's incurably evil," she said. NegaMorph glared at her and said, "If I didn't care for myself, no one else would. You have no idea what life's been for me. You been treated like a lapdog with a comfortable room, decent food, and plenty of friend, even though you're just a redeco of Angel. But me, I've been shunted, backhanded, kicked aside, spat on, hit with brooms, and treated with the lowest amount of respect. And it's all because my body's been hopelessly warped by that slug by your side, who effortlessly wins the love of everyone if though he can't do anything right!" Kala was horrified at this. "My first memory was of waking up with a Pan Pacific security team shooting at me," she said. "Oh boo hoo," said NegaMorph sarcastically, "My first memory was been twisted into creation. And it was a lot more painful than you can ever imagine."

Kala was about to yell that since then NegaMorph hadn't really helped get an image that could be accepted when Dante and a few of his men came into view. "There they are...what the hell are you standing there for, NegaMorph?" yelled Dante before seeing the hole down to the cargo area. He looked down and saw Matt and Silvia fighting and he didn't need a Chip level IQ to work out why the edge of the hole where the most cracks had originated from had drilling marks. "You stupid freak, what did you do?"

NegaMorph was already pretty wound up with anger beforehand. His large eye was just slightly glowing red beforehand. But now it was shining out a bright beam of red light, as well as his other six eyes. He let several furious roars from each one of his mouths that shook the entire space elevator. When he finished, he bellowed for all to hear, "NO ONE...CALLS ME...FREEEEEEEEEAK!!!!!"

Kala and the merc picked themselves up to see a few soot outlines on the wall with accompanying piles of ash and molten metal pools that was all that was left of Dante and his men. "Touchy," muttered the Merc, "Least we went ahead of Morph. I think that'd push him over the edge." NegaMorph's wrath was far from sated. His eyes were still glowing a brilliant red color. "Let's not attract any attention to us right now," said Kala, "He'll probably do the same thing to us."

However, she hadn't counted on Morph. Morph had been dazed by that unexpected roar. He stumbled forward and accidentally bumped into NegaMorph. The merc and Kala winced and waved at him desperately for him to hide with them. "Get over here, you moron," muttered Kala and winced as NegaMorph turned and spotted his 'twin' NegaMorph snarled and the large N-mouth on his chest opened up. As it opened, it created a vacuum affect that started sucking anything nearby into it. However, as she grabbed Morph, she slipped out of the merc's grip. Thus both Morph and Kala were sent tumbling into NegaMorph's mouth.

The merc could only watch in horror as the two experiments vanished into NegaMorph's N-mouth. "You know the cap's gonna kick your ass, right?" he said. That turned out to be a mistake as NegaMorph now shifted his attention to the merc. "Uh oh," said the merc as he sensed that it wouldn't be that dishonorable to run away now.

The merc uncoupled himself and legged it, before falling down the hole into the cargo bay. Luckily this helped Matt as the guy landed on Tuatara, who had arrived with a few troopers to stop the fight. "You know, this is getting a little crowded," said Matt to Silvia, "How about we go somewhere more private?" Silvia glared. "Ok, how about you go to the maximum security infirmary?" she said and looked at the droids, "Shoot him."

Suddenly her communicator beeped. "Hold on a sec," said Silvia and she answered. "This had better be of great significance," she said, "I'm rather busy right now." "Yeah, we were fighting," heckled Matt in the background. "I've got good news," said the answer on the other end. "I've caught a group of intruders." Matt was about to attack Silvia when a dozen droids all aimed at him. "It can wait," he said.

--

Matt's low hopes got even lower when he saw who the new prisoners were. "Ok, how long were you here before you got caught?" he said. Techo answered, "About 15 seconds. Chip got stepped on, currently he's stuck talking in a German accent." "You overgrown tin cans!" yelled Chip with a Schwarzenegger-like voice, "I vill hollow out all your useless circuitry." Then his head spun around and he said with a higher-pitched tone, "And zen I vill play on your bottoms like bongos. Ah-ha-ha-ha!"

Nobody could think of a response to this. Matt was in an even lower mood after the merc had told him what had happened to Morph and Kala. "Guys, bad news," he started and was beaten to the punch by Splicer. "NegaMorph gobbled up your little friends," said Splicer, "Gone with a smack of the lips." Draco went pale at this. In fact nobody looked happy. "You're lying!" yelled Draco, struggling to get at the smirking symbiote. "Got sucked straight into the creepy mouth," said Splicer, shivering slightly. "Wait a sec," said Contrinus, "Doesn't that mouth lead to somewhere else besides NegaMorph's stomach." "Zat vould make sense," said Chip with a calmer tone, "It does seem different zan his ozer mouths." Then his head spun and he said with the high-pitched tone, "Hey, I vonder if he can do a one-man yodeling group vith all zose mouths? Ah-ha-ha-ha!"

The droid that had brought them up was counting however, his radar scanner had a different count then his visual one. "Generals, I believe a prisoner is missing," he said. Virustoxico made a head count, "_**You toaster reject, they're all here.**_" "No, there is one less person here than on the elevator," said the droid. Several green beams shot out of the floor and through the droid, causing it to explode. From the smoke that was created emerged a creature that looked like Omnirus, only significantly taller, black hair on his head, and all of his limbs looked like those of his hybrid forms. "Omnirus?" said Matt in disbelief. "Actually," said Omnirus with a deeper voice, "It's Omnirus X now."

Silvia yawned. "Took your time," she said and pressed a button, causing an energy field to shoot up around the experiment. "Don't even try, that's darkstone energy," said Silvia smugly. Suddenly the alarm sounded. "Hey everyone!" chirped the AI, "There's a whole lot of people coming. Why didn't anyone tell me we were throwing a party?"

--

Out in space, just on the edge of the shipyard and space elevator's airspace, the space started rippling before several dozen blue portals appeared, spouting a mix of NSC fleet ships. General Orsen sat on the bridge of his flagship. He was glad that Neilsson in all his hatred of Mr. Lynch had authorized the North Star to be bugged. "I was wondering where the Empire's 3rd fleet was stationed. Tell Captain Andrews to prep his boarding teams and while we wait lets see if we can't beat Battlegroup 5's records for most confirmed kills," he said. The ship shook as the first plasma torpedoes tore into the docked Empire ship, blowing many of them apart with the first volley. A rogue shot ripped into the side of the Space Elevator. "Sir? Looks like we hit one of their power cores," said a gunnery officer. Orsen shrugged, "So? It'll just mean that Mr. Lynch n his mates will escape. It'll make Captain Andrew's life easier."

--

Everyone was shook around from the missile's hits. "Oh dear," said the AI, "It seems they don't know how to use the doorbell. They just knocked out one of our power cores." Silvia stared at the A.I. "Knocked...out...the power core?" she said faintly before looking at the new extremely smug looking Omnirus. "_**SHOOT THEM ALL!**_" yelled Virustoxico just as the Darkstone energy field failed. Omnirus X sent out a volley of fire crystals and lightning bolts from his upper arms. The blasts had caught many of the guards and stunned them, including Tuatara and Splicer. Then Draco and Chip took advantage of the distraction and jumped on top of Virustoxico.

Matt turned to see Tuatara and Splicer jostling for the privilege of attacking Matt first. "It's nice to be wanted," he muttered, firing at them. Silvia however had her hands full with Omnirus X who was shooting more or less everything at her. Several droids tried to help, only to be torn into pieces. "You know, this is getting a little crowded," said Omnirus and he stretched out his Mummymutt arms to grab both Matt and Silvia, "How about somewhere more private?" "Hey, that was my line!" yelled Matt as Omnirus used Ghostjaws' power to phase himself and them through the wall.

--

Kala had no idea where they were except it was extremely dark. "Ok, I am officially freaked out," she said. "Well this sure ain't the stomach," said Morph. "How do you know that?" asked Kala. "Because there's no giant food here," said Morph. Kala sighed and stopped when what appeared to be one of the grenades that Matt had thrown at him over the years floated by. "Erm...you sure?" she said. "I dunno," said Morph, "It would be nice if we actually knew what we were standing on." Suddenly a cobblestone path appeared under their feet, stretching into the distance. Kala looked at Morph. "Oooookay...after you," she said and pushed Morph down the path.

The two of them walked down the path. Eventually, they started coming across statues and buildings. "This is interesting," said Kala, "What's a town doing in NegaMorph?" Morph walked up to a statue and looked at it. "Hey, Kala, it's Chip," he said. Kala looked at it. The statue was indeed of Chip. "Hmm, I think we should leave it be...MORPH!" she said yelling the last part as Morph was tapping the statue. Suddenly a voice came out of the statue, "I don't think you should do that. If you set that off, you'll not likely get away unscathed." Kala and Morph looked at the statue. "Ok, that was weird," Kala said. Then Kala noticed one of Stitch. She tapped on it and heard it say with Stitch's voice, "I'm gonna let you hurt her. You have to go through me." "That sounds familiar," said Morph. "Well, it is Stitch," pointed out Kala. "No, I mean, didn't Stitch say that to NegaMorph at one point?"

"They're all memories," said Kala, looking around to see a statue of Morph. That statue was covered in a lot of grime and dirt. As Kala looked about, she saw a lot of the statues were grimy in varying degrees. In fact, the only ones that were clean were those of Megan Roph and Silvia. Silvia's statue seemed to be made out of gold. The one of Matt was just the pedestal...and a crater. "Hmm, not surprising," said Kala.

"Wonder who lives in the houses?" asked Morph as he looked through the window of one that had the address number of '262'. "Hey, it's Ace!" said Morph. Kala slowly unlocked the door. The two were unnerved a bit by the fact that the windows had bars on them. What looked like Ace was sitting on a stool in the middle of a single room. He had a shackle on his leg that was chained to the wall. He looked up and became very surprised when he saw Morph and Kala. "What are you doing here?" asked 'Ace'. "NegaMorph ate us," said Kala by way of explanation. "But neither of you are Viral Clones," said 'Ace'. "We went in through the mouth on his chest," said Morph. "Ah, that would explain it." Kala looked at Morph. "What are you talking about?" she said. "As you can tell, NegaMorph's central mouth does not lead to his stomach, it leads to his mind. That's why you can find us Viral Clones in here."

"Ok...where's the exit?" said Kala. "NegaMorph himself will have to let you out," said Viral Ace. "How do we get him to do that?" asked Morph. "You could irritate him into doing so. Try his heart. It's what irritates him the most." Morph looked around. "Er, which way's that?" "Head down the road in that direction," said Viral Ace pointing, "You'll know you're close when you see the original Shadow Clones' dwellings." Kala gulped, remembering the shadow clones. "I bet they'll love to see us again," she said worriedly. "Don't worry," said Viral Ace, "none of us can leave. The worst they can do is throw insults at you." "Except for the ones with ranged abilities." said Morph cheerfully...until Kala hit him on the head.

Kala and Morph continued down the road. The numbers on the houses were getting increasingly larger as they went. Eventually, they came across seven buildings that were different colors from the others and looked a lot more luxuriant. "Hmm, seems like we found the place," she said. Beyond the luxury buildings was what looked like a maximum security bank. Fortunately, the occupants of the buildings seemed to be preoccupied, particularly the one in the pink building from the sound of the music coming from it.

The two experiments were about to go when they heard a cry from the red building. "Kala? Morph? You aren't shadow clones. What in NegaMorph are you doing here?" "Is that who I think it is?" asked Kala as they both looked up. Standing at the window of the red building was V-627. "Hello!" called Morph, only to have the hand he was waving to be blasted off. "It's V-627 alright," said Kala dully. V-627 called out, "You tell that reject of a human I got my revenge. I Left him a little going away present," before slamming the window shut. "What was that about?" asked Morph after his hand grew back. "Don't know," said Kala, "He's supposed to be the epitome of anger in here." "Hmm, if V-624's lust, I wonder what her place is like then?" said Morph as he started heading towards the pink building. Kala grabbed his tail and said, "Not so fast, Peeping Tom."

The building apparently containing the heart was locked up tight. "Great, does your pack thing have a lock pick?" said Kala, poking the huge door. Morph shrugged and the screen of his chest. He felt around inside and said, "C'mon, I need a key. A really big key." He then pulled out a large key-like object that white except for the green guard on one end that was shaped like a DNA strand, the teeth which were green bird wings, and a keychain dangling from the hilt that had an infinity symbol on it.

Kala glared. "Where did you get that? I know for a fact that the dragon council are the only people we know with those things in their lock-ups." "I don't know, I've never seen it before," said Morph, "I just wanted a key and I got this thing." Kala shrugged. "Oh well, Let's try it. But if the dragon council ask for it back, don't blame me...or say Matt stole it," she said, adding the last part after thinking.

Morph pointed the Keyblade at the lock and a green beam into it. With a flash of light, the lock clicked and the door swung open. Inside was NegaMorph's heart. It did not look healthy. It seemed too small for someone NegaMorph's size and it was as flat as cardboard. Kala however, after the events on the asteroid was a bit surprised to see one at all. She walked up to it and poked it before remembering why that was really stupid as her soul shine reacted violently. As she screamed in pain, she saw images flash before her eyes. She saw several instances where NegaMorph was in pain, sometimes in battle like when Matt sliced his arm off with his ion blade or sometimes as abuse like when Dante used him as a doormat. She also saw times where NegaMorph felt emotional pain, like when he thought he lost Silvia because of Jekyll or when Megan went with Baba Yaga.

She came to her senses to realize she was on the floor, with Morph about to administer the kiss of life. This was enough to get her on her feet extremely fast. "IFEELFINE!" she said, springing up. "You sure?" asked Morph. "Well, except for a little pity," said Kala. "Pity?" asked a confused Morph. "I've just seen through NegaMorph's eyes, kinda shifts your opinion about him a little." Suddenly it felt like everything around them was rippling with anger. "I don't his opinion's changed about us," said Morph.

The ground shook and suddenly the suction was starting again, sucking the two upwards, and out with a 'bleah' noise onto the deck of a corridor in the space elevator. It had changed a bit. For a start, several alarms were wailing and Kala looked up to see a docked Empire corvette explode when a plasma missile hit it. She heard a whistling sound through the air and rolled out of the way seconds before NegaMorph's Lockblade slammed down where her head had been. "How dare you invade my most personal space!" he snarled. "You ate us. What do you expect? We'd just choose a nice house in Clone Town and sit back?" she said. She cried out as NegaMorph blasted her down and got ready to stab her. Suddenly the other Keyblade shot out, the one Morph had found, blocking the blade. Morph was holding it a bit unsteadily.

NegaMorph's eyes widened. "That Keyblade, where did you get it?" he demanded. "I have no idea," said Morph. Kala crawled out from under the blade as NegaMorph glared at his brother. "I don't think this is the best place to fight..." she said as several NSC and empire droid fighters flew past a window, exchanging shots. NegaMorph's tail whipped out and smacked Kala back onto the floor, the sharp end leaving a cut on her cheek. "No," growled NegaMorph, "I have had enough of both of you. We finish this now, starting with you." He opened his hand-mouth and fired a ball of negative molecular energy at Morph, causing him to fly over and land in a pile of rubble.

Kala was horrified. "I thought you couldn't kill..." she began shocked but stopped as the rubble was pushed aside to reveal Morph in his 'PosiMorph' form, NegaMorph looked surprised for a moment but then he growled again. "Figures," he said, "You get all your powers on a silver platter." He then charged at PosiMorph and slashed his Lockblade at him. PosiMorph blocked it with his Keyblade, causing great flares of positive and negative molecular energy to fly.

* * *

There's another chapter. I told you that it'd be here soon and it'd be longer. Now we see a little bit into NegaMorph's psyche. Hopefully, that clears up a lot of misconceptions about him. And Omnirus is back on the scene and he's using his new Omnirus X form. Chip's German dimentia is of course based on Blitzwing from Transformers Animated. His multiple personalities were so funny, I just had to reference them somehow. And of course, you're all probably wondering where the Keyblade, which is a part of the Kingdom Heart franchise, came from. That won't be revealed for a while, but it is definitely an important plot point. The next chapter will be up in two days. Keep an eye out for it and please review.


	6. Paradise Lost

**Retrieval Saga**

**Crossing the Rubicon**

**Chapter 6: Paradise Lost**

Matt dodged another fireball just in time. Omnirus's new form was definitely a lot tougher than the form he'd met in New York. He and Silvia had temporarily set their battle on hold to deal with the new threat, but it wasn't going well. Matt's plasma was deflected and Omnirus seemed to be feeding of Silvia's electrical attacks. "Did you have to pick now for payback?" said Matt as he avoided the laser beams from Omnirus's Eye Bolt eyes. "I told you, I don't care for payback," said Omnirus, "I live for two things: destruction and upgrades." "I can give you destruction," said Matt, forcing a plasma blast into a power conduit next to Omnirus, blowing it up. Silvia glared at him. "What? The NSC are wrecking it anyway."

"Well, you've gone to the wrong place for upgrades," said Silvia, "The EXP units' are stored in a different facility." Matt gave her an odd look. "Hamsterviel doesn't like having those things near him," she explained. "Well, he's a weird..." he began but was interrupted as a piece of wreckage was thrown at him by the singed Omnirus. "Oh, I wasn't looking for those EXP victims," said Omnirus X, "They're only good enough for a temporary power boost. The AI's I'm interested in are the really powerful or unique ones. Like, for example, ones strong enough to override someone from Dimension A-001."

Silvia backed up at this before looking over to the half-conscious Matt, no help there. "You're not getting me," she said snarling. "My dear, what makes you think you can stop me from doing so?" said Omnirus as his Vicktorvine arm stretched out and grabbed her. Silvia gagged as she was lifted off her feet. Omnirus looked over as Matt got up unsteadily and saw what he was doing. "HEY! LET HER GO!" he said, igniting a plasma orb. Omnirus gave him a slightly puzzled look. "What would you want to stop me?" he asked, "Didn't you want to get rid of her AI?" "I've seen the after effects, put. Her. DOWN!" he said, his eyes glowing with the last word. "You'll have to catch me first," said Omnirus X as he started running with the use of XLRWolf's legs. Once he got enough of a decent running start, he took off with Stinkgrade's wings.

Matt turned into dragon form and tore after the experiment. Luckily the fact that the tunnels were hardly straight meant that Omnirus's XLRwolf power could not be deployed to its full. However, Matt had forgotten that Omnirus had Eye Bolt's back and could see behind him. As he saw Matt coming, he muttered to himself, "Right, I forgot he could do that." Silvia had also transformed, sticking her claws into the arm holding her. "Argh, oh yeah, you can too," said Omnirus. Silvia quickly broke herself away from Omnirus. "If I'm going to be fighting dragons," said Omnirus, "I'm going to need a sword." He sharpened his Diamondblast arm into a flaming spike. Unfortunately for Omnirus, he'd momentarily forgotten about Matt, who had unfortunately no idea that Omnirus had stopped and the two collided...painfully. "Scratch that last statement," said Omnirus as his Diamondblast arm bulked up and the point receded, leaving a depression into his forearm. "What's that supposed to-" started Matt but then Omnirus shot a flaming ball of diamond-hard crystal out of it and straight into Matt's gut. Matt didn't have time to dodge, barely getting a shield up, but this just slowed the ball down. It knocked him flying and rendered him semi-conscious for the second time in as many minutes.

Omnirus changed his cannon arm back to normal and turned to Silvia. "Now where were we?" he said. Silvia snarled, her eyes blazing in a similar white hue to Matt's when he was angry and she tried to tackle him, claws out. But Omnirus turned intangible for a second, causing Silvia to crash into the wall behind him. Silvia shook her senses back in time for Omnirus to grab her round the throat. "Like I said, where were we?" said Omnirus evilly.

Matt shook his head as his senses started working again. When his hearing came back, the first sound he heard was Silvia's screams. He turned his head to see Omnirus grabbing Silvia and his Omnitrix emitting a beam of green light at her head. "NO! DIEEE!" he yelled, lunging at Omnirus with murder on his mind. Omnirus barely looked at him. The two Stinkgrade wings on his back became tendrils and backhanded Matt to the other side of the corridor they were in. Matt slumped down the wall and could only watch as Silvia's screams faded along with her form, turning back to her full human form. "Finally," said Omnirus X as his Omnitrix started glowing brighter, "This is what I've been waiting for." Suddenly a plasma orb hit him and knocked him a couple yards away. Matt ran up to Chloe, who's form was shimmering between a translucent version of her dragon form that would superimpose over her before flickering away again. "Chloe? Talk to me," he said. Chloe opened her eyes and said "Ow...where am I?" she said.

Matt hugged Chloe and said, "Thank goodness you're back." "Not for long!" called Omnirus as he got back up, "Because Omnirus X is going Omnirus X0!" His body started growing, going from the size of a 10-year old to an adult's. The brown fur on his body fell off, revealing purple scales underneath. The black hair on his head grew longer as his face pushed out into a dragon's muzzle. Matt and Chloe both stared wide eyed and then both burst out into gales of laughter. "Oh, you'd better think about your name...HAHAHA!" laughed Matt before falling over.

"What? What's so funny? Wait, what's wrong with my voice?" Omnirus's voice now sounded like Silvia's. Then he looked down at himself and let out a very feminine shriek. That was because he wasn't 'himself', anymore. What he hadn't anticipated was that his body would adapt to Silvia's gender. Now instead of a muscled body, SHE had a very feminine body that looked more attractive than threatening. The white lines on his vest that once outlined his pectorals now drew attention his new breasts.

Matt and Chloe were now crying with laughter until a well aimed fireball blackened their heads. "STOP LAUGHING! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE COWERING!" yelled Omnirus, angrily. "Well pardon me...ma'am," said Matt and the two of them started laughing again. Omnirus growled and yelled, "This is supposed to be my strongest form! You're supposed to find it terrifying, not hilarious!" "Ok, but at least I won't hit you. I don't hit girls," said Matt, sniggering and stopped as Chloe and Omnirus glared at him then both hit him at the same time.

--

Meanwhile, NegaMorph and PosiMorph were still going at it. Whenever their weapons clashed, large sparks of molecular energy flew. Kala was still hiding when Draco and the others turned up. "I think NegaMorph's got over his thing against killing," she said terrified. NegaMorph then disarmed PosiMorph. "It's time to do what I should have done a long time ago," he said as he clutched PosiMorph's neck with his three left arms and he started powering up a super-powerful blast in his right arm. NegaMorph was about to shoot when he winced, his usual heart pain kicking in. "No, this can't be," he groaned, "I've assimilated all the Viral Clones. I shouldn't have this problem." He tried harder to fire the blast when his heart started hurting more than ever. It got so bad that red sparks were crackling over his body.

At that, there was a small explosion and Matt and Chloe ran round a corner, Matt sporting a double bruise on his face before Matt hit the blast door, sealing it just before a strange dent appeared in it followed by what Draco swore was draconic swearing. Chloe was first to see NegaMorph. "What's up with him?" she said. "I guess he still can't kill people," said Matt, "at least not outside of berserk mode." Then he did a double take and said, "Wait, do you remember him?" Chloe nodded. "Some of it, still a lot of blanks though," she said and stopped as NegaMorph looked at her.

NegaMorph's face switched to that of shock. "No," he said, "you couldn't have, it's not possible." He let PosiMorph fall out of his grip. "Guess it's over, NegaMorph," said Matt, "You lost." "I don't believe this," said NegaMorph, his voice get progressively angrier, "I finally assimilate all the Viral Clones and it barely helped my form. I still can't kill. And now I've lost the only person I can consider trustworthy." PosiMorph decided now might be a good time to get out harm's way. He was just about to sneak away when NegaMorph grabbed him again. "If I can't kill you, then I'll just have to make sure I never see you again!" he snarled. He slashed a portal in the air with his Lockblade, revealing a vortex of indefinite properties. He tossed PosiMorph through it, who screamed as he was sucked out of sight, the portal closing up behind him.

Matt stared in horror at NegaMorph. Even Chloe looked sickened. "I don't think Silvia would have liked you to do that," she said faintly. "What do you all care?" snapped NegaMorph. "I hardly figure in any of your lives. I'm nothing to all of you." "Oh yes you are," growled Matt, "You're a murderer." He then charged at NegaMorph with his ion staff. Chloe yelled "NO, STOP!" as Matt slashed NegaMorph down the right arm, cutting it off at the elbow. He aimed another slash at neck height. NegaMorph leaped backwards out of Matt's range. As NegaMorph recovered from Matt's attack, Matt said, "You've always been causing pain and misery for everyone, but you've gone way too far this time. I cannot forgive you for what you've done." "You can't forgive me? That's funny. I don't recall ever asking you to forgive me. We'll talk about forgiveness when I wipe you out of existence!" yelled NegaMorph as he charged at Matt. Matt growled and let loose a blast of black energy that sent NegaMorph down the corridor just as some of Captain Andrews's men came into view. "It's General NegaMorph, shoot him!" said one and they began shooting.

NegaMorph flinched as the blasts shot several holes through him and even cut off some of his limbs. "No! He's mine!" yelled Matt. Andrews would have objected if it weren't for the look on Matt's face that would have cracked apart a bulldozer. They stepped aside as Matt brandished his ion staff. "This is where it ends," he said. NegaMorph winced and said, "How could I loss? I was supposed to be invincible." He glanced up at Matt and said, "Well what are you waiting for? Go on, do it. Do it!" "I can never forgive you for what you've done to Morph. He was my friend," said Matt, "How can you be so cold? You're not even sorry for what you did!" He raised up his ion staff and said, "Goodbye, NegaMorph!" and started to bring it down on him.

Chloe yelled, "CAPTAIN MATTHEW, JAMES LYNCH! STAND DOWN!" Matt froze, the blade almost touching NegaMorph who was barely breathing from the blade's proximity. "You aren't a murderer, Matt. In all the time I knew you, you never killed anyone willingly. Please don't start now," she said more softly. Matt looked down at NegaMorph and seemed like he was going to do it anyway. NegaMorph shut his eyes...and heard the sound of Matt's ion blade powering down.

NegaMorph stood up and looked at Chloe. "I don't get it," he said, "Why are you protecting me? We're not on the same side anymore. I just banished one of your brother's friends through a portal with no designation." "You gave Silvia...and me a friend. I'd have been just another minion of the Emperor if you hadn't been my friend. I can't forgive what you did though. Please, just go," said Chloe.

NegaMorph's pain contorted with pain again. But it wasn't physical pain, it was emotional pain. He walked past all the others to an empty corridor. "Just leave me alone," he said. "NegaMorph..." started Kala. NegaMorph spun around and yelled, "I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Captain Andrews wasn't about to let NegaMorph leave. "That's it. FIRE!" NegaMorph ignored the SMG rounds bouncing off him and walked into one of his shadow portals. Andrews stomped over to Matt. "YOU IDIOT...WE COULD HAVE GOTTEN A TOP GENE...ack!" He yelled, chocking as Matt grabbed him round the throat and pushed him aside.

Suddenly a louder explosion was heard and the AI was heard on the intercom. "My word, you people are terrible houseguests. The entire space elevator's breaking up now. There, are you happy?" Matt seemed to snap out of a trance. "Oh nuts, run away?" he suggested. Chloe looked behind her. "Omnirus is back where the pods are, there's just the docking bays this way." "Yes, it is time to leave zis place," said Chip in his colder voice. Then his head spun and he said with the Swartzeneger voice, "Too bad we don't have time to smash more bad guys on ze way." Then his head spun and his higher-pitched voice said, "Oh, can we go stop for ice cream on ze way back? Ah-ha-ha-ha!" Chloe was about to say, "What the heck's up with...?" "Never mind, run now, wonder later," said Matt.

The group, Andrews's men included followed until they reached the main docking bay. There was one ship, a familiar ship. "Nice, least we know how to steal this model," said Matt. The ship was identical to the old NSS Ohana. The door lasted a whole 4 seconds under the ship's phase cannons, blasting them off their hinges. The ship flew out into space, just as the elevator broke loose from it moorings. Matt watched the elevator float away. "Well," he said, "I guess we could call this day a victory. We've just cost the Empire a base, I've got my sister back, and I've finally heard the last of V-627." Suddenly an annoyingly familiar voice in his head said, "Not so fast! Haven't you ever heard of back-up copies?" Matt's scream of frustration could be heard throughout the entire ship.

Andrews said, "More then that. Intel's been looking for this place for months. It's where they've been launching all their attacks on NSC territory," as the liberated Defiant Class flew between the NSC capitol ships, ant-like in comparison.

--

Meanwhile, NegaMorph had managed to get to an escape pod in time. He didn't know if anyone else survived, but frankly he didn't care. He was looking at the adamantium pocket watch Silvia had given to him on his first birthday. "I have nothing now," he said to himself. There was a small splashing sound as the first tears he's ever shed fell onto the watch.

* * *

There's another chapter. This is rather grim. In fact, I intended Omnirus X0 to be the only comedy relief in this whole chapter. Well, that and Chip's concussion-based impression of Animated Blitzwing. I find it somewhat anticlimatic for him to reach his most powerful form yet and get laughed at for it. Almost makes you feel sorry form him. Almost.

However, the part regarding PosiMorph and NegaMorph is much more sobering. PosiMorph isn't actually dead, he's just sent through a portal with no intended destination. In other words, he could be anywhere at any point of time. Most probably, he won't be in the same dimension. I had hoped that I've built up enough sympathy for NegaMorph at this point. The thought of learning all his goals had been for naught and that he's lost his only friend really makes you pity him, right? Anyways, the last chapter of this story and this arc will up in two days. Make sure you see it and please review.


	7. Deal with the Devil

**Retrieval Saga**

**Crossing the Rubicon**

**Chapter 7: Deal with the Devil**

The pod shot out and floated for 5 minutes before the NSC shadow ship that Silvia used flew by. "General NegaMorph, the emperor commands your presence. Where is General Silvia?" said the acting captain over the pod comm, reeling in the pod. "Gone," replied NegaMorph, "They managed to liberate her true personality." "Very well," said the ensign coldly.

NegaMorph was escorted to the lab. Emperor Hamsterviel was busy looking over the control panel of some kind of machine. It looked somewhat similar to the cloning machine that another Hamsterviel used to create an army of Leroys, only it was larger and the receiving and sending ends seemed to have switched places. A figure was standing in the shadows behind the Emperor who was there on a hoverchair. "Ah, so you have finally come back," said the emperor in a slick voice. "Yes sir," said NegaMorph, without much enthusiasm in his voice. "I have heard that you've finally assimilated all the Viral Clones," said Hamsterviel. "Yeah, but it didn't do me a bit of good," said NegaMorph.

He looked at the machine Hamsterviel was working on and asked, "What is that?" "My pet project," said Hamsterviel, "And it's just been completed." Hamsterviel pointed to the machine. "Get in it, NOW!" The figure behind Hamsterviel tensed up. NegaMorph looked at the emperor suspiciously, "Why? What's it do?" "You were just the prototype...and you are the catalyst for the creation of your replacement," said Hamsterviel. "Replacement? What are you talking about?" demanded NegaMorph. "You'll know soon enough," said Hamsterviel as he snapped his fingers, "Anton! Put him in the extraction chamber!"

The figure walked forward and two 'scimitar' class ion blades activated. "Ok, time to take a trip, NegaMorph. Don't make this hard on yourself. I'm 5 times the handful that Mr. Lynch is," said the person called Anton. "Keep back!" shouted NegaMorph, "I don't know who you are, but I'm going in anything without a good-" Anton interrupted NegaMorph by raising his hand. The air between the two rippled and NegaMorph was thrown across the room and into the machine. In the act, the shades Anton was wearing slipped, revealing reptilian eyes instead of human. "Allow me to introduce General Anton," said Hamsterviel, "He's going to be replacing General Dante since you ripped him up. And soon, you'll be replaced as well."

"What's going on here?" demanded NegaMorph as he tried to get out of the right glass chamber. "You didn't think I was having you hunt Virus Clones just so you can upgrade your pitiful mutated form, did you?" said Hamsterviel. Hamsterviel continued as the machine began to activate, "You were just a failed prototype but with the clones powers you are the perfect catalyst for your replacement." "What is this replacement you keep talking about?" "Let's just say that you're Experiment -630.1. I'm about to create Experiment -630.2. However, in order for me to create him, I needed all the Viral Clones' DNA in one container. And you performed that job perfectly." The machine chimed, "Reality Array at 100% power, proceed when ready." Hamsterviel sneered, "Farewell, freak. Maybe your next version will actually do his job?" NegaMorph stared in disbelief. "You've been using me all along," he said. "As the adolescent humans of Earth always say," said Hamsterviel, "duh."

Then the machine sent a red beam down on NegaMorph. NegaMorph screamed as his body started to get torn apart. It was the worst pain you could possibly experience. It was like having every single cell get vivisected one by one by electrically-charged hooks and then dipped in magma-hot acid. Anton turned away from the sight. Some things you just aren't comfortable watching. A person being reduced to their component DNA is one such sight.

As NegaMorph's body was torn to bits, information was being downloaded from the bits and sent to the other chamber. A black liquid started pouring into it, quickly filling up part of the chamber. "Process complete, program 630.02 commencing," chimed the computer. Red bolts of could assumed to be electricity came from the top of the machine and zapped the black. However, that 'electricity' was actually negative molecular energy. And as more of it was channeled into the liquid, it started to take shape. Anton looked over at Hamsterviel. Personally the little gerbil disgusted him but a job was a job, even of your boss was several bananas short of a fruit salad.

The liquid was now a semi-solid, and it was getting pretty big. Four legs sprouted of the bottom, with long claws on all sides. Then emerged the tail which ended in two cruel-looking metal stings with gunbarrels surrounding them. Then a torso formed, a large muscular torso with six metal spines coming out of the back. A mouth then appeared in the stomach, one that was shaped like an 'M'. Its arms came next, each ending in a three-mandibled mouth. Finally came the head. It was slightly draconic looking with four red eyes, a mouth full of several rows of sharp fangs, and two devil's horns on its head.

"Allow me to present my latest creation!" said Hamsterviel, "OmegaMorph, the ultimate genetic war machine!" OmegaMorph simply growled to himself, brimming with evil and its mind filled with all the devastation he was about to release upon his master's enemies. The machine hissed open, letting the creature out. Anton looked OmegaMorph up and down. "Impressive. I have to say, I've seen worse lurking beyond the border in the deadlands, but it's quite impressive all the same." he said. "Yes, unlike that useless NegaMorph, he can control all of the Viral Clones' powers. He'll use those to conquer every planet I sic him on," said Hamsterviel.

"What about the prototype, seems a bit of a waste, you use all of it?" Anton asked. "I highly doubt there's anything left of him," said Hamsterviel as he admired OmegaMorph, "Check the receiving chamber just in case." Anton watched as Hamsterviel walked out with OmegaMorph like a child with a new toy before strolling over to the machine and opening the chamber. He looked down to see something in the bottom...a heart, shriveled up, but still a heart. "Hardy guy, aren't you," he said. He picked up the tiny thing with two fingers and said, "I should just throw this thing the trash," he said, "But then again, after what happened to him, it'd be too undignifying to just bin it." He grabbed a stasis container from one of the lockers and popped the thing in before closing it. "Maybe you'll get a second chance...and your revenge," said Anton, before calling security to take the tube down to storage. "Ancients know you deserve one," he muttered as the servitor droid carried it off.

* * *

And there is the final chapter of this arc. And Hamsterviel's master plan is revealed. He was wanting to use NegaMorph to create a more powerful version of him. You can't but feel a little bit sorry for NegaMorph. Not to mention the fact that with OmegaMorph, the war could get a whole lot more nasty.

I'm going to be taking a week off before I start on Arc 3. Hopefully I'll be able to think of a title for that saga. Also, I'll be working on pictures relating to this story. Hopefully, I'll soon have an electronic drawing pad to them with. Until the next story is up, keep reading my Digimon story. I'm going to try and finish that as soon as I can. Please review.


End file.
